A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025)

Director: Kogonada

Cast: Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Might have missed it, too, if it hadn’t been for a more-charming-than-average trailer, I might have missed it altogether.

Did I Like It: To paraphrase Bart Simpson*, after he saw Naked Lunch (1991), “I can think of at least four things wrong with that title.”

Unfortunately, whatever charm the film had at its disposal was spent in that aforementioned trailer. Even in the context of the full film, the one moment where a character says the misplaced-in-time Sarah (Robbie) looks like she’s forty, plays less funny and more like a line meant for a different actress.

Robbie and Farrell seem to be vaguely embarrassed by the film happening around them, as if they both understand they have to allow for a down project after their recent highs in Barbie (2023) and The Penguin and act for our patience while the rest of their career calibrates in front of our eyes.

A bland rebound project might register on the mind as a tepid non-event, if it weren't for the fact that the supporting cast is utterly wasted. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline can each single-handedly raise films beyond where they might have otherwise been. Here, they just show up and have a mildly quirky air about them, while unfortunately neglecting to have anything funny to say or do. There’s a different cut of this film somewhere that is probably just as uneven in pacing and tone, and is ultimately still a small, tepid, reasonably photographed circular trip, but it would at least have been a bit funnier.

*I thought I may have gone to this well before in a review, and searching the reviews, I apparently did it in a recent review for Night Editor (1946). In retrospect, I mean it far more here than I did then. Ah, well. There is at least some risk of repeating oneself over nearly 1000 reviews.

Babylon (2022)

Director: Damien Chazzelle

Cast: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart

Have I Seen It Before: Well…

Did I Like It: Let me put it like this. Imagine I am the head of development at Paramount*.

Damien Chazzelle enters.

ME: So, what do you got?

DC: I want to remake Singin’ in the Rain (1952).

ME: Interesting… Interesting. Like, with the songs and the whole thing?

DC: No.

ME: I see…

DC: The film will open with an elephant shitting all over as many characters as possible.

ME: An ele—?

DC: Also, Jean Hagen’s character will die off screen, although its heavily implied that gangsters mutilated her with acid…

ME: All because she couldn’t hack it in the talkies?

DC: Well, see, she gambles too much…

ME: Okay…

DC: Also she throws up in William Randolph Hearst’s face.

ME: In?

DC: Yes, in.

ME: This is because of the elephant?

DC: They’re unrelated. Actually, the Hearst thing has nothing to do with her death, either. I just always wanted to watch someone barf on Hearst. (beat) Although I would imagine if she could have made it in the talkies, the studios would have paid the gangsters off with something other than prop money.

ME: Okay. Interesting.

DC: Also the Gene Kelley character shoots himself in the head at the end of the movie.

ME: Because of the acid?

DC: Unrelated.

ME: The thing with Hearst and the vomit?

DC: Unrelated.

ME: …the elephant?

DC: Listen, I’m going to make your life a lot easier and faster by saying that almost every element of the movie is essentially unrelated to any other element.

ME: Uh-huh. What happens to Donald O’Connor or Debbie Reynolds?

DC: Who?

ME: Never mind. (beat) Who the hell are you going to get to be in this movie?

DC: Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie…

ME: Oh. (thinking) Well, I’d watch that.

(This wasn’t even a negative review, really…)

*Which would still not let me wave my hand and release Batgirl. Somehow, even in my most power-mad fantasies, I’m still stymied.

Barbie (2023)

Director: Greta Gerwig

Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Had ambitions to do a true Barbenheimer double feature with Oppenheimer (2023) last week, but the fates of schedules saw that it didn’t happen.

Did I Like It: It’s going to be very difficult to find a unique or unusual take on this movie. It’s so thoroughly captured the zeitgeist, if you are reading this, you probably have a very particular opinion about the film. You probably have thoughts on the subject regardless of whether or not you’ve seen the film; the only qualification is being alive in any sort of rudimentary way.

A subset of those people are men. Well, we’ll broaden the definition of that word to include male persons allowed to vote. They feel attacked by the film.

I really, truly, don’t understand how someone can come to that conclusion. Let’s forget for a moment that the movie is genuinely very funny and far, far weirder than one has any right to expect from a major studio release. The notion that Barbie is somehow anti-man is laughable on its face. Even though the Kens, led by Beach Ken (Gosling) try to bring the patriarchy to Barbieland, when the plan falls apart they are not pilloried. They’re forgiven. Ken himself doesn’t get the girl, but he wasn’t going to get the girl even if he hadn’t made all of the mistakes he did. He gets an opportunity to find some degree of happiness without Barbie, and presumably without using every photoshoot Sylvester Stallone exposed us to in the 80s as the Platonic ideal of masculinity.

What they mean to say is it empowers women, and that’s all they need to hear before they could even try to realize it is not only empowering to women, but oddly (in the best way) life affirming to men as well. I say that not as someone who might view himself as better than the complainers, but as someone who got called out pretty thoroughly by the Kens’ behavior, too. (The scene with The Godfather… struck a chord, but it was definitely a fair hit.)

I’d be willing to put money not only on the fact that it has an inside track on best picture in the spring, but also that we are about to enter an age not of mega-budget superhero-fests in hope that they have the next Avengers: Endgame (2019) on their hands, but instead of female-skewing, unashamedly weird, IP-based movies that cost about 100 million dollars. If Mr. Zaslav, head of Warner Bros. Discovery is reading this, haaaaave you met Batgirl?

The Suicide Squad (2021)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. The drips and drabs of COVID-era new movies keeps coming. Didn’t make it out into the theater for this one. Don’t know when I’ll make it out to the theater for a new movie again the rate things are going. Oddly enough, the last new movie I caught at the theater was likely Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020).

Did I Like It: About a day after screening the film, I was struck by the perfect encapsulation of my positive feelings for the film:

I enjoyed it so much, and wanted the good feelings to continue, that I was halfway tempted to watch the original Suicide Squad (2016). 

And I never thought it would even kind of occur to me that I might want to watch that movie again. But this one moves at such a lean and economical pace—despite its army of charaters all begging for a moment in the sun—that everything Jared Leto-related is forgiven.

Seriously, if you had told me as I was walking out of that movie that Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Quinn will be the most consistently enjoyable part of DC’s attempts to make a connected cinematic universe, I would have told you you were crazy.

Bringing all of the sensibilities from his work on Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and its sequel, along with its sequel, but also blending in the raucous influences of his work with Troma impresario Lloyd Kaufman, this film cuts to the quick and never quite lets the viewer get comfortable, much to this particular viewer’s delight. I laughed throughout, and yet, somehow the film isn’t a spoof of the genre. There’s a fine line between taking potshots at a genre and engaging it both fully and irreverently, and I can’t immediately think of a filmmaker working in blockbuster entertainments who is straddling that line better than Gunn.

It’s not just the best DC movie in recent memory; it is the most purely enjoyable superhero movie since Thor: Ragnarok (2017), easily the most relentlessly fun DC film ever made (and I am far from someone who is down on the DC films as a whole), and easily in the upper echelons of the superhero genre.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)*

Director: Cathy Yan

Cast: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Suicide Squad (2016) was a muddled mess of editing and miscasting. The fact that Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn was able to be a bright point in one of the more boring wide-release films in recent years definitely warrants her welcome return under different creative stewardship.

And the film is terrific. It brings the sensibilities of someone like Shane Black into the DC Universe. It’s a film that’s funny, the characters are likable (even when they are gleefully being unlikable), and there isn’t one point in the writing where I wonder how this thing got out of the studio. This would automatically put it above most DC films released in the last ten years.

Like Wonder Woman (2017) before it, Birds of Prey manages to bring a DC character to life without making large swaths of the audience alternately bored and uncomfortable. Now, granted, there are choices in this movie that will piss off the contingent of movie internet who have spent the last several weeks telling anyone who would listen that Parasite (2019) stole something very precious from <Joker (2019)>, but those types of people have enough to occupy their time so their tired complaints about the film aren’t worth acknowledging, to say nothing of dwelling upon.

It also may be the most sensuous breakfast porn I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I’m less than an hour past my screening of the film and I’ve wanted nothing but an egg sandwich ever since.

I do have two thoughts that I implore you, dear reader, to not take as complaints, but more as missed opportunities to my particular taste. There is a prolonged action sequence in the impound locker of Gotham City Police Department precinct, and it looks like any other impound lockup from any other cop movie you’ve ever seen. The film could have had a menagerie of thing taken from many of the Rogue’s Gallery. Harley could try to fell the mercenaries with an umbrella gun, and—in keeping with the themes of the film—find it utterly lacking in destructive power. A similar moment could be played out with a hand-grenade made out of a set of chattering teeth. There are other suggestions I have, but I won’t trouble you with them now. The film’s title has already received a revision since its opening, we don’t want this to be a Cats (2019) situation. In the interest of full disclosure, my wife strenuously disagrees with this though. It’s not an objective note about the film.

The other qualm I have with the film? No Barbara Gordon! How can you have a Birds of Prey film without including Barbara Gordon? Now, I understand DC may be angling for her own film sooner rather than later, but the question remains. For that matter, how has no live-action DC film even attempted to bring the once and future Batgirl to the screen? It boggles the mind.

*I set a minimum word-count for these reviews, and awkwardly long titles like this certainly help matters.

Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)

Naturally, spoilers for a recent release follow. Read at your own discretion.

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Kurt Russell*

Have I Seen it Before: No. New release, and Tarantino always keeps things fresh within certain parameters, although I’m absolutely certain I’ve seen shots of feet like that before. Damn, does that man love feet. If he does end up making a Star Trek film—as looks to be a strong possibility as his tenth and allegedly final film—be prepared to see some Starfleet officers out of their boots.

Did I Like It: I’m still processing a lot of it, but yeah, what’s not to like with Tarantino?

Every movie of his has been like hanging out with a much cooler older brother who has seen every movie you should. It also helps that he is skilled enough to distill all of those wonderful things into expertly crafted entertainments in their own right.

And it’s that feeling that continues here, but with less emphasis. There are deep dives into the wonders of B+ Spaghetti Westerns and 60s action-adventure TV, and it is all a delight. Tarantino loves the 60s, and through the course of the film I cannot help but share his love. The milieu also does a remarkable job of establishing the kickass bonafides of Cliff Booth (Pitt) by having him drop kick Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) into the side of nearby sedan. It also removes the potential for any future about if Booth or Lee would win in a fight. 

There have been no shortage of hot takes about the level of violence in the film. Most of them somehow have the nerve to sound surprised that Tarantino would deign to feature elevated levels of violence in his films. It’s pretty clear that if these people weren’t born yesterday, they’ve certainly been asleep for the better part of thirty years.

Even so, the violence is different here than anything we’ve seen from Tarantino before. For one thing—along with the language—it is remarkably restrained, until it isn’t. The worst examples of violence are perpetrated against women, which in and of itself is problematic, but at the same time Pitt and DiCaprio viciously murder two of the more unrepentant killers in modern history, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel (along with their companion Charles “Tex” Watson). 

But then again—just like with Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds (2009)—history is turned on its ear, and by the time Manson’s assassins meet their grisly end, they’ve really only broken and entered (that’s the past tense of breaking and entering, right?). 

It’s certainly given me more complex things to think about than the cathartic end of Adolf Hitler in Basterds. 

And all of that leave me with even more interesting things to consider. With Helter Skelter thwarted before it could get off the ground, how does that change the makeup of pop culture? Does Manson (Damon Herriman) and his family pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and start all over again? With Manson’s prophecies fully disproven, does the family unravel, leaving old Charlie a wandering racist vagabond, without his infamy to fuel his hateful ego? Does Sharon Tate become the delightful screen presence that her brief time in front of the camera hinted at, or will she become a side note in cinematic history? That pretty lady who was once married to Roman Polanski?

Could that be the takeaway? Everybody in Hollywood is destined to be a little less famous than they would like to be? I’m content to think that isn’t the thesis, because ultimately this is Tarantino, and his latest film fulfills its promise by being a symphony of strange and unusual things. I could unpack every element, but I would need several thousand more words and at least another screening or two before I could hope to do it justice. It will stick with you long after the director of the Red Apple cigarette commercial calls “cut.” And—assuming you’re into Tarantino—you’ll like it, too.

*It proved more difficult than I might have otherwise thought to come up with a fourth billed actor, as nearly every other actor and character is a cypher throughout the movie. Even Manson, arguably the only catalyst for a plot in the film, appears for maybe a minute, and does precisely nothing. The award has to go to Russell, since he also pulls narration duty.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Director: David Yates

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou

Have I Seen it Before: At the time of this writing, it was a new release. If it counts for anything, I certainly haven’t seen it since.

Did I Like It: I’ll let the review speak for itself.

The following review has been adapted from a blog post entitled “Movie Theaters of Days Past: Eton Square (51st and Memorial),” previously published on August 6th, 2016. 

So, I saw The Legend of Tarzan. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot more to say about the film than that, but here we go.

Shot with the certain misty production-designed panache that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) made fashionable and Avatar (2009) made de rigueur, the film is an inoffensive action piece that nearly completely disappears from memory the moment you exit the theater. 

Of note, I completely didn’t notice that Margot Robbie played Jane until I collected my thoughts just now and did a quick IMDB search. Not for nothing, that’s a fair indication that she may have a longer career ahead of her if I don’t automatically think “Oh, Margot Robbie is in this movie” the moment she comes on screen. Here she has managed to not be dragged down by the mediocre film around her, while she is also managing to close out the summer by being a scarce bright spot in a train wreck like Suicide Squad. 

Also, I was more than a little surprised to learn that both the character and actions of Samuel L. Jackson’s character were taken from history in a baffling move somewhat akin to the title card at the end of Bloodsport (1988), that claimed the film was based on a true story. 

Otherwise, the film will probably be forgotten pretty quickly. If you look at the box office returns, then there’s something to the notion that people largely forgot the film before its release date.