The Driver (Ryan O'Neal) emerges from a parking structure. Everything has been carefully orchestrated for this casino heist. We quickly learn why he's the best man for the job. After taking off with the thieves and their quarry he successively evades the cops in an elaborate high-speed chase.
Only two problems: The Detective (Bruce Dern) with a vendetta against him, and the gorgeous Player (Isabel Adjani) who can identify him.
It's a beautiful, if a bit run down, nighttime world Hill invites us into. A world populated with people just trying to get by on the margins. These are not the high roller, fantasy criminals of John Wick. And, as you would imagine in a movie calledThe Driver, there are exceptionally well executed car chases.
I really enjoyed The Driver, and that's been true of most films by writer/director Walter Hill I've seen (e.g.: The Warriors, 48 HRS.). There are high stakes interactions between the characters, and much of the story is communicated visually. There is barely any dialogue in the first 25 minutes of the film, and we know 100% what is going on.
I genuinely liked the chemistry between the actors. Dern is a standout as the cop who is willing to cross the line and make dirty deals to meet his objectives, and we hate him for it.
I also have to mention Isabel Adjani as The Player. She's looking for a clean way out of this game of one-upmanship.
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"My heart is pounding. Like a phone book in a dryer." - Cam Brady
The Campaign opens on a title card with a Ross Perot quote:
War has rules, Mud wrestling has rules - politics has no rules.
And I wondered, what sick prophecy would be in store for me in this movie?
Well, the one we already know. Rich people want to control everything.
Part satire, part stupid, The Campaign tells the story of Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) a slick yet complacent North Carolina congressman who's about to pick up his seat unopposed, when things change.
The crushingly wealthy Motch brothers, (John Lithgow & Dan Aykroyd) decide to fund the unlikely Marty Huggins, a tour guide and nepo baby (Zach Galifianakis), in the race against Cam. The Motches spare no expense and hire cutthroat campaign manager Tim Mottley (Dylan McDermott) to run the show for Marty.
Directed by Jay Roach (of Austin Powers francise fame), The Campaign is an okay movie with the talent behind it to be better. The cast is unbelievable. Brian Cox is in it for crepes sake!
In many ways, it feels like these artists are using this movie to figure out how to inject political critique into their work, and I'm all for artists attempting to push their art that way. You can see this in other films by Roach, Adam McKay, and Will Farrell. That said, rather than ride that fine line between silly and sophisticated*, it spends too much time in the former to be good commentary.
It's fine.
TRAILER:
WATCH INSTEAD: The Big Short
*The movie felt like it relied too much on improvisation which may have pushed it more toward jokes that did not serve the plot or the characters
Peter Winter (Peter Greene) is driving back home to find his daughter. Nicole has been living with another family; her mother died long ago and Peter was just released from an institution. He's afflicted by auditory and visual hallucinations caused by schizophrenia.
En route, he hits something with his car, wraps it and carefully places it in his trunk.
Elsewhere in town, a detective is searching for a missing girl and is confounded by the lack of evidence in the case.
Clean, Shaven has a low-budget, gritty quality. It makes inventive - often jarring - use of sound to crash you into the world as Peter perceives it. Images race by and we wonder if we're seeing how things look from the sky, from God, or inside Peter's head.
In contrast, the scenes with the cop often felt buffoonish or comic. They seemed out of place tonally, rather than feeling like moments of relief. The stories eventually converge with Peter and the cop coming face to face.
Overall the film is serious and tense, while still framing Peter as an empathetic, if troubled, person. We understand his desire for family, while fearing for Nicole.
Peter Greene's performance is captivating as a man struggling to make human connection in a world that he, literally, can't decipher.
The film is worth watching for everything it does right.
Dir. Louis Malle, 1h 50m [Film Penance 2026 - Sat Special]
"Now I'm 36, and all I think about is money." - Wallace
My Dinner With Andre lived in my mind long before I watched it. It was directed by the acclaimed French auteur, Louis Malle, and and I knew it from references in a multitude films and TV shows. This was invariably done by a brainy or snobby character, and I was versed in the movie's lore:
It's the movie where two men sit at a table in a restaurant and talk over dinner. They're philosophical and intellectual.
And I can confirm the aforementioned are true.
Wallace (Wallace Shawn) is meeting Andre (Andre Gregory) for a meal. It's been a while since these old friends have seen each other. Wallace seems a bit trepidatious about how he'll stack up against Andre, who is the more successful of the pair. Yet, who are these men now, after all this time?
The conversation between them bounces from Polish forest theatres, UFOs in Scotland, and the fascist qualities of The Little Prince.
The use of long takes and slow push-ins feel artfully connected to the dialogue, and the lighting has a natural quality. Nothing flashy about the look, this is about a relationship.
So interesting to think of this film after seeing Teorema. I wondered what Pasolini would think of these characters in the restaurant. Specifically the restaurant staff, that we only catch fleeting glimpses of. I wondered about the waiters' assessment of Wallace and Andre.
As for Malle, the message of My Dinner With Andre is that to be alive is to be purposeful. Don't be unconscious and abdicate responsibility for your life. Fair enough.
That said, ultimately, I felt like these guys were fine. The stakes were relatively low. And that's okay.
But because of it, the film did not land with much weight for me. I was more interested in the plight of those waiters.
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Dir. Mike Nichols, 2h 5m [Film Penance 2026- Wolf Wednesday]
"What are you, the last civilized man? " - Laura
Wolf was not everything I hoped it would be.
Here's the gist. Will (Jack Nicholson) loses his job to the conniving Stewart (James Spader), the same guy who's banging his wife (Kate Nelligan - which BTW, great to see her a bit slutty).
Will decides to rally the colleagues closest to him and demand his job back by going to the billionaire owner of the company (Christopher Plumber) and presenting him with an offer he can't refuse.
Things are complicated in two ways. First, lo and behold, along comes the billionaire's daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer), to shake things up.
Second, Will has become a werewolf.
The werewolf thing, where do we go with that?... My guess is that it's repressed masculinity. He needs to be a wolf to get his job back and have sex with a hot chick, otherwise, why even be alive, bro?
Overall the movie is a bit of a mess. I have wanted to watch it for years, especially since Siskel and Ebert panned the film when it came out. But I thought, there are so many amazing artists working on this film in so many departments... Mike Nichols directing, Giuseppe Rotunno as cinematographer, Ennio Morricone did the score, Rick Baker on effects and an ALL STAR cast (lots of names in this one). And still, it was really boring.
Never doubt Ebert, man.
The only things that made it worthwhile was James Spader, and the aforementioned Kate Nelligan sluttiness. So, just watch those clips on You Tube maybe?
NOTE: Baby David Hyde Pierce and Allison Janney are in it too! Prunella Scales! Richard Jenkins! I'm sure they all thought, "I'm in a Mike Nichols movie!" Well folks, this was not the one.
NOTE 2: If you're still here and you decide to watch this movie, I think Michelle Pfeiffer is the werewolf who bit Jack Nicholson in the beginning. Sorry. Not Sorry.
After a post-prom time capsule retrieval, Mimi convinces them to go on a road trip to California so she can audition for a record company. She doesn't want to give up on her goal of making it as a singer. Kit & Lucy initially don't want to go, but Mimi is persuasive. Lucy decides that she'll only go as far as Arizona, where her mother (Kim Cattrall) lives now.
Written by Shonda Rhimes and directed by Tamra Davis, Crossroads is a solid little coming-of-age, "we gotta make it to the contest" film. All the little threads tie up at the end, each girl has a major awakening by the time the movie is over, and it's a nice time. There's some bickering, but ultimately the girls are on each other's sides.
Special shout-out to Lucy singing along to "Open Your Heart" in her bedroom. It was a slick way to hear Britney signing Madonna.
Recommended.
You can stop here. But... there's more...
While watching Crossroads, I often thought about how "girl" movies can often be undervalued, and will only gain legitimacy if there's a male director behind it... and my thoughts went to Tarantino's Death Proof.
Now those gals are a older than our Crossroads crew, but what else makes them different...?
Both have coy flirty moments. But it made me think that what really separates them is the use music, the depiction of violence and the male director. Crossroads is not violence free - it's just referenced in a different way. Crossroads is full of pop songs, and so are Tarantino movies, just not the same type. And Tamra Davis, like so many women directors, do not get the cred as artists. It might not be the same today, but it ain't that different. Shonda Rhimes did okay, notwithstanding.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Let me know if you want to come by for a double bill.
Dir Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1h 38m [Film Penance 2026 - Bad Company]
"You've simply destroyed the idea I've always had of myself" - The Father/Paolo
A wealthy family in Milan is about to receive a Visitor (Terence Stamp).
The family is rolling in dough because the Father is an industrialist factory owner. He has a very proper Italian household with his wife, (the Mother), his Son, his Daughter and his Servant. The kids go to private schools. They're a social group, so when the Visitor arrives, they have a little soiree. No big deal, they do this all the time.
As the party goes on and the guests dwindle, bedtime draws near. Everyone who lives at the house has eyes on the Visitor.
The members of the household are drawn to him, and each makes a sexual advance towards him in personality-revealing ways. They each need something different.
The Visitor courteously obliges them, and as the physical encounters with him occur, one by one they become obsessively attached.
The film is stylish, has a spare Ennio Morricone score, and Pasolini makes the interesting choices, such as cutting to a landscape of dark rocks each time the Visitor and a partner are intimate. Silvana Mangano is particularly arresting as The Mother of the family, as is Laura Betti as the servant Emilia. And of course, Terence Stamp dazzles as the Visitor.
Where a typical film would have the players catch wind of their mutual lover, leading to jealous confrontations and competition for the Visitor, that's not how Teorema plays out.
Half way through the film, the Visitor just leaves. In his absence, each member of the household has their identity devolve or transform in some way. Everything from naked madness to religious ecstasy.
Pasolini intended this film to be a critique of the bourgeoisie in Italy; he identified as being a Marxist film maker. That part did not connect with me.
What did, was the idea what plagues us about other people originates from within.
