Gladiator II (Ridley Scott, 2024)

Cast: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, Peter Mensah, Matt Lucas, Alexander Karim, Yuval Gonen, Tom McInnerny. Screenplay: Peter Craig, David Scarpa. Cinematography: John Mathieson. Production design: Arthur Max. Film editing: Sam Restivo, Clair Simpson. Music: Harry Gregson-Williams. 

One Hour Photo (Mark Romanek, 2002)

Cast: Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Dylan Smith, Gary Cole, Evie Daniels, Paul Kim Jr., Eriq La Salle, Clark Gregg. Screenplay: Mark Romanek. Cinematography: Jeff Cronenweth. Production design: Tom Foden. Film editing: Jeffrey Ford. Music: Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek. 

Robin Williams gives a fine performance in One Hour Photo, but it remains just that: a performance, a tamping down of his familiar manic presence into the persona of the repressed, furtive Sy Parrish. He works in the photo processing department of SavMart, a vast and impersonal big box store. He lives alone, and his chief human contact is with his customers, who bring him their rolls of film to be developed. Their snapshots give him a glimpse into the lives of people who have families and children and celebrate events like weddings and birthdays. He also gets a glimpse of the secret lives of people, who bring in shots revealing their sexual proclivities, but he chooses to concentrate on the happy families, especially the Yorkins: the beautiful Nina (Connie Nielsen), her handsome husband, Will (Michael Vartan), and their cute 9-year-old son, Jakob (Dylan Smith). His admiration for the Yorkins grows into an obsession, and from that writer-director Mark Romanek spins the plot. One Hour Photo is supposed to be a thriller, in which we watch uneasily as Sy's obsession curdles into something malevolent. But by showing us Sy talking to the police at the start of the film, he deprives us of that surprise. There's a slackness in the narrative that works against the suspense, and Sy's breakdown and eruption into violence feels less like an integral part of the character than a plot device. Romanek also gets distracted into making a satiric point about the soullessness of the megacorporate entities embodied by SavMart, turning the store manager (Gary Cole) into the villain who pushes Sy over the edge. For many people, however, watching Williams perform is enough to overcome the movie's flaws. 

Demonlover (Olivier Assayas, 2002)

Connie Nielsen in Demonlover

Cast: Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny, Dominique Reymond, Jean-Baptiste Malartre, Gina Gershon, Edwin Gerard, Thomas M. Pollard, Abi Sakamoto, Naoko Yamazake, Nao Omori. Screenplay: Olivier Assayas. Cinematography: Denis Lenoir. Production design: François-Renaud Labarthe. Film editing: Luc Barnier. Music: Jim O'Rourke, Sonic Youth. 

Demonlover is a kind of message movie, and we all know the Hollywood truism about those: "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." But Olivier Assayas is not a Hollywood director, and his message comes through loud and clear. It's a familiar one: In the hands of globalized corporate capitalism, the internet has the potential to become a corrupting and alienating force. The film opens with a bunch of corporate capitalists luxuriating in business class on a flight to Japan to negotiate the rights to pornographic anime produced by a studio there. On the flight, Diane (Connie Nielsen) slips a drug into the Evian water being drunk by her superior at the Volf Corporation, Karen (Dominique Reymond), who collapses when they land in Tokyo. Diane then takes her place in the negotiations. It soon becomes clear that Diane will stop at nothing to seal a deal, but also that she's a double agent working for Volf's competitor, Mangatronics. Once Diane and her partner, Hervé (Charles Berling), land the rights, they begin negotiations with Demonlover, an internet company represented by Elaine Si Gibril (Gina Gershon), which also runs a site called The Hellfire Club on the dark web that specializes in torture porn and perhaps even snuff films. Diane's aim is to acquire Demonlover for Mangatronics instead of Volf, and she'll stop at nothing to do so. Unfortunately for Diane, her assistant, Elise (Chloë Sevigny), is also a corporate spy, and the spy vs. spy plot takes a bloody turn. Assayas isn't content to tell this story in conventional thriller fashion, so what we get involves a lot of disorienting camerawork and editing, and the movie makes its point with a somewhat disjointed ending. It was a critical and commercial flop, but the awareness that its message was prophetic has caused it to be reevaluated. 

Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, 2017)

Saïd Taghmaoui, Chris Pine, and Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman

Diana: Gal Gadot
Steve Trevor: Chris Pine
Hippolyta: Connie Nielsen
Antiope: Robin Wright
Ludendorff: Danny Huston
Sir Patrick: David Thewlis
Sameer: Saïd Taghmaoui
Charlie: Ewen Bremner
The Chief: Eugene Brave Rock
Etta Candy: Lucy Davis
Dr. Maru: Elena Anaya

Director: Patty Jenkins
Screenplay: Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder, Jason Fuchs
Cinematography: Matthew Jensen
Production design: Aline Bonetto
Film editing: Martin Walsh
Music: Rupert Gregson-Williams

For much of Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins directs Gal Gadot and Chris Pine the way Howard Hawks directed Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, keeping the romantic tension and witty byplay at the fore. But this is a superhero comic book movie, and eventually the demands of the genre force romantic wit to be subsumed in pyrotechnics and CGI. Still, for much of the film, Wonder Woman is as entertaining as you could wish. Gadot is the perfect embodiment of the Amazon demigod, carrying herself with regal power but also allowing the human vulnerability to show through. Pine seems to have become everyone's second favorite Chris: The others -- Hemsworth, Evans, and Pratt -- wound up in the currently dominant comic book universe, Marvel, whereas Pine got stuck in the second-tier DC universe. But he's probably the most talented of the four, having demonstrated his musical gifts in Into the Woods (Rob Marshall, 2014) and his dramatic ones in Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie, 2016). So although Steve Trevor meets a fiery end in Wonder Woman, Pine is too valuable a performer to let go entirely, and besides, Trevor always had a way of coming back from the dead in the comics.

Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)

Richard Harris and Russell Crowe in Gladiator

Maximus: Russell Crowe
Commodus: Joaquin Phoenix
Lucilla: Connie Nielsen
Proximo: Oliver Reed
Marcus Aurelius: Richard Harris
Gracchus: Derek Jacobi
Juba: Djimon Hounsou
Falco: David Schofield
Gaius: John Shrapnel
Quintus: Thomas Arana
Hagen: Ralf Moeller
Lucius: Spencer Treat Clark
Cassius: David Hemmings
Cicero: Tommy Flanagan
Tigris: Sven-Ole Thorsen
Slave Trader: Omid Djalili

Director: Ridley Scott
Screenplay: David Franzoni, John Logan, William Nicholson
Cinematography: John Mathieson
Production design: Arthur Max
Film editing: Pietro Scalia
Music: Lisa Gerrard, Hans Zimmer

"Are you not entertained?" Well, to answer the question Maximus bellows at the crowd: No, not very much.