Mr. Freedom (William Klein, 1969)

John Abbey in Mr. Freedom

Cast: John Abbey, Delphine Seyrig, Donald Pleasence, Jean-Claude Drouot, Serge Gainsbourg, Yves Lefebvre, Sabine Sun, Rita Maiden, Colin Drake, Pierre Baillot, Raoul Billerey, Philippe Noiret, Sami Frey, Catherine Rouvel, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret. Screenplay: William Klein. Cinematography: Pierre Lhomme. Production design: William Klein. Film editing: Anne-Marie Cotret, Valérie Mayoux, Monique Teisseire. Music: Serge Gainsbourg. 

William Klein's sledgehammer satire Mr. Freedom was made at a time when revolutionary posturing was all the rage in France and things seemed to be coming apart in the United States. It stars John Abbey, an expatriate in France like his director, as a cop turned superpatriotic superhero. Donning the guise of Mr. Freedom, which involves a lot of padded musculature and a costume made out of sports gear, he descends on France to save it from the commies and ends up nuking much of it. For a contemporary equivalent to the character, think of Homelander from The Boys. The movie is a gleefully unsubtle mess, filled with cameos by French actors and a larger role by Delphine Seyrig as Marie-Madeleine, a French collaborator with Mr. Freedom. (Or is she?) The movie's lampoon of American political and cultural imperialism (the American embassy is a shopping mall) is almost too broad to cause offense. It's about half an hour too long, like an SNL skit run amok, but there are laughs to be had.   

Lingua Franca (Isabel Sandoval, 2019)

Isabel Sandoval and Eamon Farren in Lingua Franca

Cast: Isabel Sandoval, Eamon Farren, Lynn Cohen, Ivory Aquino, Megan Channel, Lev Gorn. Screenplay: Isabel Sandoval. Cinematography: Isaac Banks. Production design: Maxwell Nalevansky, Clint Ramos. Film editing: Isabel Sandoval. Music: Teresa Barrozo. 

The problems facing the protagonist of Isabel Sandoval's Lingua Franca are even more urgent today than they were when the film was made. Sandoval herself plays Olivia, a transgender Filipina who works as a live-in caregiver for Olga (Lynn Cohen), an elderly woman on the verge of dementia. An undocumented immigrant, Olivia sends some of what she earns to her mother in the Philippines and pays much of the rest of it to a man who promises to marry her, which would allow her to get a green card. But when he announces that he's met someone he really wants to marry, she's left on her own, just as ICE is stepping up a crackdown in the Brighton Beach area where she lives. Then Olga's grandson Alex (Eamon Farren),  who has just been released from prison, moves in with his grandmother. After initial wariness, Alex and Olivia develop a relationship. As writer and director, Sandoval handles the nuances of the situation well, giving us enough of Alex's own difficulties to understand why he may not be the ideal solution to Olivia's problems. As actress, she is also up to the task of portraying Olivia's mixture of hope and fear as a resolution to those problems presents itself. Except for a few scenes where the revelation of Olivia's sexual identity and the threat of deportation feel contrived, Sandoval mostly resists conventional plotting, and the bittersweet conclusion of the film is deftly achieved. Lingua Franca is one of those movies that need to be better known. 

Body of Evidence (Uli Edel, 1993)

Madonna in Body of Evidence

Cast: Madonna, Willem Dafoe, Joe Mantegna, Anne Archer, Julianne Moore, Jürgen Prochnow, Lillian Lehman, Frank Langella. Screenplay: Brad Mirman. Cinematography: Douglas Milsome. Production design: Victoria Paul. Film editing: Thom Noble. Music: Graeme Revell.

Perhaps the only effective performance and convincing characterization in Uli Edel's Body of Evidence is that of Lillian Lehman as the judge presiding over a tawdry trial, who is rightly pissed off at the nonsense taking place in her courtroom. The film was a vanity project, designed to make Madonna into a major movie star. She plays Rebecca Carlson, a gallery owner in Portland, Oregon, who indulges in BDSM but winds up on trial for murder when one of her partners, a wealthy older man, dies after having sex with her after, leaving her $8 million in his will. Rebecca's sexual tastes are "explained" by a passing reference to childhood abuse, but her anything-goes approach to sex seems to stop short at bisexuality: She broke off with another partner when she found him in bed with a man. It would take an actress more adept at nuance than Madonna to make sense of such an ill-conceived role. There are some fine actors in the movie, including Willem Dafoe, Joe Mantegna, Frank Langella, and Julianne Moore (who has expressed regret at taking her role in the film), but the screenplay, filled with "surprise twists" that land with a thud, does them no good. Body of Evidence bombed with critics and audiences, and it holds favor today only with die-hard Madonna fans. 

Seen But Not Reviewed

Queen Bee (Ranald MacDougall, 1955)

Él (Luis Buñuel, 1953)

Lumière, le Cinéma (Thierry Frémaux, 2025)

The Love That Remains (Hlynur Pálmason, 2025)

The Suicide Squad (James Gunn, 2021)

Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2009)

Send Help (Sam Raimi, 2026)

52 Pick-Up (John Frankenheimer, 1986)

Thirteen Lives (Ron Howard, 2022)

Four Letter Words (Sean Baker, 2000)

Sirāt (Oliver Laxe, 2025)

Antitrust (Peter Howitt, 2001)

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Koganoda, 2025)

Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)

The Office Wife (Lloyd Bacon, 1930)

The International (Tom Tykwer, 2009)

Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie, 2025)

Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham, 2010)

Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper, 2025)

Magellan (Lav Diaz, 2025)

Hart's War (Gregory Hoblit, 2002)

Welcome II the Terrordome (Ngozi Onwurah, 1995)

The Host (Bong Joon Ho, 2006)

Honey Don't! (Ethan Coen, 2025)

Next of Kin (Atom Egoyan, 1984)

Black Phone 2 (Scott Derrickson, 2025) 

Hidden in the Fog (Lars-Eric Kjellgren, 1953)

Fountain of Youth (Guy Ritchie, 2025)

Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu, 2016)

Maze Runner: The Death Cure (Wes Ball, 2018)

The Big Hit (Kirk Wong, 1998)

Saving Mr. Banks (John Lee Hancock,2013)

My Father Is Coming (Monika Treut, 1991)

Ondine (Neil Jordan, 2009)

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)

Anniversary (Jan Komasa, 2025)

Remote Control (Jeff Lieberman, 1988)

Deepwater Horizon (Peter Berg, 2016)

We're All Going to the World's Fair (Jane Schoenbrun, 2021)

Before We Go (Chris Evans, 2014)

Berlin Express (Jacques Tourneur, 1948)

Caddo Lake (Celine Held, Logan George, 2024)

Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019)

Disclosure (Barry Levinson, 1994)

Love and Monsters (Michael Matthews, 2020)

Resurrection (Bi Gan, 2025)

Thelma (Joachim Trier, 2017)

The Internship (Shawn Levy, 2013)

Ballad of a Small Player (Edward Berger, 2025)

Ava (Tate Taylor, 2020)

Naked Acts (Bridgett M. Davis, 1996)

Family Viewing (Atom Egoyan, 1987)

Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, 2025)

Two Minutes Late (Torben Anton Svendsen, 1952)

Twinless (James Sweeney, 2025)

Hard to Handle (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)

Wicked: For Good (Jon M. Chu, 2025)

The Model Couple (William Klein, 1977)

Virgin Machine (Monika Treut, 1988)

Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025)

Aurora (Cristi Puiu, 2010)

Re-Wind (Hisayasu Soto, 1988)

It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi, 2025)

Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble, 1999)

Lancelot du Lac (Robert Bresson, 1974)

Hamnet (Chloë Zhao, 2025)

Hooper (Hal Needham, 1978)

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Mary Bronstein, 2025)

High Pressure (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)

The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025)

Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (William Klein, 1966)

The Green Knight (David Lowery, 2021)

Seduction: The Cruel Woman (Elfi Mikesch, Monika Treut, 1999)

12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006)

Bleeder (Nicolas Winding Refn, 1999)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006)

Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-wai, 2008)

A Different Image (Alile Sharon Larkin, 1982)

SLC Punk! (James Merendino, 1999)

Big City Blues (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932)

Maniac Cop 2 (William Lustig, 1990)

Sex (Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024)

The Hunted (William Friedkin, 2003)

King of the Night (Hector Babenco, 1975)

Lúcio Flávio (Hector Babenco, 1977)

Prison on Fire (Ringo Lam, 1987)

Prison on Fire II (Ringo Lam, 1991)

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025)

Wake Up Dead Man (Rian Johnson, 2025

Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier, 2011)

Train Dreams (Clint Bentley, 2025)

Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg, 2014)

I Am Not a Witch (Rungano Nyoni, 2017)

West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (Med Hondo, 1979)

You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)

Framed (Richard Wallace, 1947)

The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997)

Chloe (Atom Egoyan, 2009)

Maniac (William Lustig, 1980)

The Bellboy (Jerry Lewis, 1960)(

My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar-wai, 2007)

Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997)

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, 2024)

Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater, 2025)

Pariah (Dee Rees, 2011)

To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 1985)

William Petersen in To Live and Die in L.A. 

Cast: William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro, Darlanne Fluegel, Dean Stockwell, Steve James, Robert Downey Sr., Michael Greene, Christopher Allport. Screenplay: William Friedkin, Gerald Petievich, based on a novel by Petievich. Cinematography: Robbie Müller. Production design: Lilly Kilvert. Film editing: M. Scott Smith. Music: Wang Chung. 

William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. is a darkly cynical thriller in the mode of Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) and Friedkin's own The French Connection (1971), though instead of the tough cops played by Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman, we get the solid but miscast William Petersen as Richard Chance, a Secret Service agent grimly determined to catch the counterfeiter Eric Masters (Willem Dafoe), who murdered his partner. It all leads up to a celebrated car chase going the wrong way on an L.A. freeway, but then fizzles into a downer anticlimax. There's too much lame dialogue, some of it apparently ad libbed under Friedkin's instructions. At one point, a snitch asks Chance to be reimbursed for her expenses, to which he retorts, "Uncle Sam don't give a shit about your expenses. If you want bread, fuck a baker." Chance seems to have been instructed in this kind of reply by a stoolie he tried to employ earlier, who told him "If you want a pigeon, go to the park." Undeniably kinetic, To Live and Die in L.A. is riddled with too many improbabilities and plot holes to be fully satisfying. The car chase is the best thing about the movie, along with Robbie Müller's cinematography.  

Peter Hujar's Day (Ira Sachs, 2025)

Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw in Peter Hujar's Day

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Ben Whishaw. Screenplay: Ira Sachs, based on a book by Linda Rosenkranz. Cinematography: Alex Ashe. Art direction: Ryan Scott Fitzgerald. Film editing: Affonso Gonçalves. 

Ira Sachs's Peter Hujar's Day lacks everything that people go to movies for: action, conflict, spectacle, laughter, tears, even plot. And yet it's wonderful, a small brilliant gem of a film. It consists of two characters, Linda Rosenkranz (Rebecca Hall) and Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw), talking about what happened on a recent day in Hujar's life, detailing every event he can recall from waking up in the morning to going to sleep at night. The film is based on transcripts of a tape Rosenkranz made of her interview with Hujar, a freelance photographer, for a "day in the life" book. It helps that Hujar moves in circles that include such mid-1970s celebrities as Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, and that he lives in a city like New York, undergoing a constant social upheaval, so what might be an ordinary day for him is more colorful than most of our days. But we never meet these celebrities or see the streets of the city except through Hujar's narrative. What we do see is the confines of Rosenkranz's apartment as Hujar talks and Rosenkranz prods, and the light shifts from day to dusk to night. Cinematographer Alex Ashe's deft use of that light gives the movie what action it possesses beyond the two people moving about the apartment, lying on the couch, talking on the balcony, and Hujar smoking incessantly even as Rosenkranz scolds him for it. Sachs never even lets us see the photos Hujar took, like this one of Ginsberg.

But Peter Hujar's Day is a small triumph of filmmaking, reliant heavily on the consummate acting skill of Whishaw and Hall. 

Blue Moon (Richard Linklater, 2025)

Andrew Scott and Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, Patrick Kennedy, Jonah Lees, Simon Delaney, Giles Surridge, Cillian Sullivan, Michael James Ford, John Doran, Anne Brogan. Screenplay: Robert Kaplow. Cinematography: Shane F. Kelly. Production design: Susie Cullen. Film editing: Sandra Adair. Music: Graham Reynolds.

I wish I liked Richard Linklater's Blue Moon more than I do. He's one of my favorite directors, and Ethan Hawke is terrific as Lorenz Hart, whose lyrics I love. But Robert Kaplow's screenplay, "inspired by" the correspondence between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland (played by Margaret Qualley), turns the lyricist into a spiteful, deluded bore, and I can't believe that Hart was so lacking in insight into himself and others. The cast is phenomenal, especially Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers, basking in the success of   Oklahoma! and trying to enjoy the moment while placating the envious Hart, and Bobby Cannavale as the bartender trying to lift Hart out of his bitter funk. Qualley brings to life a fictionalized character based on some letters exchanged with the real Weiland, who seems to be otherwise unknown except through her flirtatious correspondence with Hart. Patrick Kennedy, an actor otherwise unfamiliar to me, has some fine, small moments as E.B. White, though I wish Kaplow hadn't invented the bit about Hart inspiring White to write Stuart Little. There's enough wit and truth in Blue Moon almost to overcome the screenplay's prevarications, but only the performances make it more than a melancholy misfire.

Happyend (Neo Sora, 2024)

Yukito Hadaka and Hayata Kurihara in Happyend

Cast: Hayata Kurihara, Yukito Hadaka, Yuta Hayashi, Shina Peng, Arazi, Kilala Inori, Pushim, Ayumu Nakajima, Makiko Watanabe, Shiro Sano. Screenplay: Neo Sora. Cinematography: Bill Kirstein. Production design: Norifumi Ataka. Film editing: Albert Tholen. Music: Lia Ouyang Rusli. 

Disaffected students at a Tokyo school pull a prank on their principal that gets labeled (as things often do these days) "terrorism" in Neo Sora's debut feature, Happyend. The consequence is that the principal (Shiro Sano) installs a radical new surveillance system that causes still more turmoil at the school. Sora's look into the near future resonates with our anxious present, touching on such issues as authoritarianism, racism, and invasive technology. The touch is light, however, thanks to an engaging young cast and a plot that never turns as grim as it might. 

The Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog, 2005)

Cast: Brad Dourif, Donald Williams, Ellen Baker, Franklin Chang-Diaz, Shannon Lucid, Michael McCulley, Roger Diehl, Ted Sweetser, Martin Lo. Screenplay: Werner Herzog. Cinematography: Henry Kaiser, Tanja Koop, Klaus Scheurich. Film editing: Joe Bini. Music: Ernst Reijseger. 

Werner Herzog's The Wild Blue Yonder is a great director's jeu d'esprit, a deconstruction of science fiction tropes about intergalactic travel, using space shuttle footage provided by NASA and Henry Kaiser's film from below the ice in Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. It's held together by a narrative supplied by Brad Dourif playing an alien from the Andromeda galaxy, and given an eerie underpinning by cellist-composer Ernst Reijseger. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes maddening, sometimes boring, but always provocative.  

Louder Than Bombs (Joachim Trier, 2015)

Isabelle Huppert and Gabriel Byrne in Louder Than Bombs

Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg, Devin Druid, Amy Ryan, David Strathairn, Ruby Jenkins, Megan Ketch, Rachel Brosnahan. Screenplay: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt. Cinematography: Jakob Ihre. Production design: Molly Hughes. Film editing: Olivier Bugge Coutté. Music: Ola Fløttum. 

Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs is a portrait of a dysfunctional family, but Trier lays on the dysfunction a little too thickly and the film descends into soap opera territory. Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert), a celebrated photojournalist, has died in an automobile crash, and her family is contacted by a gallery for a memorial exhibition of her photography. A reporter (David Strathairn) who had worked with her is also preparing an article for the New York Times celebrating her life and work. Gene (Gabriel Byrne), her husband, asks their older son, Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg), who has just become a father, to come help him sort through the materials remaining in Isabelle's workshop. The younger son, Conrad (Devin Druid), is still in his teens, and Gene has refrained from telling him that his mother's death was probably not an accident but instead a self-destructive consequence of depression. Trier tells their story in fragments and flashbacks, and relies on some rather heavy-handed ironies. Isabelle, for example, had been concerned that her photographs of the victims of war were exploitative and voyeuristic, but Gene becomes a voyeur himself, spying on the sullen, secretive, and taciturn Conrad. He is also having an affair with one of Conrad's teachers (Amy Ryan) to further his spying on his son. In a gratuitous episode that adds nothing to the plot or the theme of the film, Jonah, although initially portrayed as a loving husband and father, has an affair with an old girlfriend (Rachel Brosnahan) he meets in the hospital where his wife has just given birth. The acting is uniformly good, with Druid particularly effective at portraying the torments of adolescence. But the secrets and lies in the film tend to sink it into melodrama.