ON NOT BREAKING STRIDE

 

It has been just over 30 years since I moved from California to Fisher Island, a residential community immediately adjacent to Miami Beach and the neighborhood known as SoFi for South of Fifth Street. There are some very historic and interesting things throughout that swath of land, none of greater renown than the iconic restaurant Joe’s Stone Crab.

People have been known to line up for hours for a table at Joe’s. Back in the day, reservations (hardly acknowledged even today) were then all but unheard of.

I never had to deal with any of that. Not, as you might suspect, because of my multiple Emmy wins from that time in the 1980s when my career was on a Hollywood upswing. No matter how I may have flattered myself, I always knew I owed my celebrity status at Joe’s to my bride, actress Sharon Gless, who everyone knew back at the turn of the last century as America’s best-looking cop in a skirt, Christine Cagney of Cagney & Lacey.

Joe’s owner was Jo Ann Weiss Sawitz Bass, the grandchild of Joe Weiss, the guy who created the place over 100 years ago. Jo Ann’s father inherited the business from his father and by the latter years of the 20^th century, the restaurant was hers (later co-owned with her son, Steve Sawitz, who… with his Mom… made it even more successful). Together, mother and son, got to see the place, year after year, being named one of the highest grossing restaurants in the United States while still maintaining items on the menu that any local could afford.

It was a matter of personal pride to Jo Ann Bass that however pricey those seasonal stone crabs would become, at Joe’s, locals could always afford what was arguably the best fried chicken in town at prices below that charged by the Kentucky Colonel.

Besides loving her restaurant, which she ran with the help of her lifelong best pal, Rose Cook, Ms. Bass loved Cagney & Lacey and especially my wife, its blonde star.

Forget reservations, Sharon and I never hesitated as we marched past the waiting throng to be seen by the maître d’ who would stop whatever he was doing, lean into the microphone on his podium and say, “Ms. Gless, party of two. Sharon Gless.” Sometimes, just to mix it up, the captain would call out my name. Either way… never a wait, we never broke stride.

More nights than not we would be seated at what we came to learn was “the family table.” And it was a rare “boy’s lunch” where Jo Ann did not come over to give me a greeting and ask about my then working-a-lot spouse. And those famous desserts? Never paid for one… not while Ms. Cook or Ms. Bass were in house.

Fisher Island was all very new to me then. And very friendly. Sharon was off in London doing a play or in Canada doing her Queer as Folk series for Showtime and I would regularly be fielding calls from neighbors who seemed concerned about my being home alone and asking me to join them for dinner… off Island. I thought it was nice, and a pleasant break from the on-Island pizza joint, the Garwood lounge, the Beach Club, or Renato’s Italian eatery.

What I noticed was how often these invitations resulted in our going to Joe’s. While it is true that the number of fine restaurants in the area has grown exponentially since the mid-90s, even then, Joe’s was not the only high-quality eatery around.

I am not the brightest lamp on the bush, still it did not take me long to realize that rather than concern about my being left alone while my wife was at work, the invites were coming my way because in my company, my hosts did not break stride either. With me along, they could get a table at Joe’s without the wait. All thanks to Jo Ann Bass.

Three decades later, Sharon and I still love Joe’s… rarely do we have a houseguest from out of town where we don’t take them to this iconic eatery… and even though Jo Ann had been less active of late, prior to her recent passing, both Sharon and I are always treated by the gang at Joe’s like something close to family.

Rose Cook has been gone for some time now… we managed that major adjustment well, I thought. Not having Jo Ann Bass check in on us from time to time will take more of an effort. Both Sharon and I will miss our fabulous hostess… still, as far as that big stone crab restaurant in the sky is concerned, I will not mind if it takes Ms. Bass a while longer to seat me at my table.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

Cold

 

Cold

The hordes of Indianians have returned to their state of Hoosierism, taking with them the college football national title and leaving behind one of the coldest Miami winters in memory.

The contest itself… #1 Indiana vs #10 Miami, was played at the Hurricane’s home stadium. It was a great game that left the locals bereft and the visitors (a majority by thousands in Miami’s home stadium) ecstatic. It is, I am sure, fair to posit that most of these Hoosiers had never breathed a moment when they had even fantasized about a national championship that did not involve a round ball.

On January 19, the HOO became the what… and watched, along with thousands of their neighbors, the Indiana FOOTBALL team… and their Heisman Trophy winning Quarterback… win it all. No longer would Gene Hackman be the only star of record in Indiana. The Hoosiers now had Fernando Mendoza!

16 straight games without a defeat, leaving in their path not only the Hurricanes, but cutting a wide swath through a lifetime of grievance, pain, and humiliation imposed for generations by the Ohio State Buckeyes and the reviled Nittany Lions of Penn State. Did I mention Fernando Mendoza seemed to fly into the end zone, defying gravity, to score the winning touchdown that January night at Florida’s Hard Rock Stadium?

The atmosphere was electric, if not warm. There is, they say, something about revenge being best served cold. Exciting as it was, I would have given it all up for another 10-15 degrees on the upside. If you have been anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States this January you know what I am talking about.

Of course, much worse things were going on just west of the home of the Hoosiers … for while the ghosts of failed football teams of the past were being put to rest on that Indiana campus… 600 miles from Bloomington… in Minneapolis… Liberty’s poem, highlighted by the phrase, “Give me your tired, your poor…” rang as hollow as ice in an empty glass.

It was all it took to get me to look for escape in the form of filmed entertainment. Landman with Billy Bob Thorton and a fabulous ensemble cast… now enhanced by the always good Sam Elliott... has ended its second season on Paramount Plus. When comes such another? Not soon enough.

I lurched toward some Oscar nominated motion pictures and was disappointed in Marty Supreme. Good as Timothee Chalamet is as table tennis champion Marty Mauser, and as well directed as one could ask of Josh Safdie… 150 frenetic minutes in the company of a sociopathic anti-hero was more than I had bargained for. There is some real good stuff in the movie, but I suspect little of it (if any) will make the memorable list when that great documentary in the sky, composed of Hollywood’s best film clips, is finalized.

The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto) was next. It is a Brazilian film set in the time of that country’s military dictatorship (mid 1970s). It is winning a lot of international awards but I am betting American audiences will find it too long and its narrative too unstructured. It is well made and probably appropriate that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences find a way to honor it with a nomination… if not an endorsement that the viewing public should actually go out and pay money to see this film. Something I do not have to go out very far on a limb to predict they will not do.

My biggest disappointment of this film trio was Bugonia, but only because ever since Poor Things I so looked forward to this next film by director Yorgos Lanthimos. Emma Stone is back with the director for this one and she is excellent (and nominated). So is her co-star, Jesse Plemons. Poor Things, which pretty much won everything a couple of seasons ago, simply had me expecting too much of filmmaker Lanthimos. The Bugonia film is a very good one, it just isn’t the great one I had anticipated. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons just could win it all, but I doubt it… not in the year of One Battle After Another.

But then…. I am the guy who went out on a limb for Russell Crowe in Nuremberg. Go know.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

 

BATTLE AFTER BATTLE

What may be the best film of 2025 is, undoubtedly, the most important film of a very long time.

It is… all at the same time… concise, obscure, funny, terrifying, accurate, necessary, and fanciful. I could go on. The movie certainly does… for just under three hours.

I refer you to Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and I hardly know where to start. Let me begin in the summer of 1955, immediately after my graduation from High School.

It was June and there was a review in TIME magazine of the film The Night of the Hunter where the reviewer wrote something to the effect that the movie was “a bit like using a .45 to kill a ladybug. One admires the marksmanship but deplores the waste of power.”

I have remembered that quote since reading it over 70 years ago, have referred to it more than once regarding any number of movies, and thought of it again when watching One Battle After Another. I thought of it… but quickly realized it really does not apply to this powerful and, potentially, important film.

“Potentially,” in that we have yet to see what the film audience will do with what they see at the nation’s movie theatres and streaming on Netflix. Will it awaken the imagination of the viewing audience? Cynically, I suspect that the potential of this film and its message will be wasted. The movie’s dismal failure at the box office is a strong indicator that I am right about that.

For purposes of this review, I shall put aside the politics of this motion picture. I believe it was Samuel Goldwyn who, nearly a hundred years ago, said something to the effect that “…messages are for Western Union.”  Ironic in that his grandson (Anthony Howard “Tony” Goldwyn) plays a powerful white supremacist in the movie whose significant role is all about “message.”

Onward. The movie is long… very long at 162 minutes. It does not matter. The time flies by. The performances are all … even the tiniest parts… visually and virtually terrific.

In no particular order, Chase Infiniti makes an amazing debut as the daughter of Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor, both of whom shine as Ms. Infiniti’s parents. I have never before seen a Latin American sensei… nor can I imagine anyone better at playing such a part than Benicio del Toro does in this film. Regina Hall is powerful in her role, and Sean Penn, as US Army Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, is assured an Oscar nomination for his performance in this motion picture. There are so many others… and director Anderson has herein proven the point that there are no small roles… as each of the actors in this movie play their parts beautifully and believably.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson wrote the screenplay for One Battle After Another, partially based on the 1990 novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon and with a nod to the French film classic Battle of Algiers.

Anderson is a genius filmmaker and unlike the movie, Jay Kelly, which I had to watch twice because I could not believe it could possibly be as boring as it was on the first viewing, I will watch One Battle After Another at least one more time to understand it better and in appreciation for my favorite art form being realized so well.

There is no minimizing the restraint this observer exerted in this review by minimizing the content of this motion picture. It is a very political movie and its truths might sting, yet they are valid. As someone who often categorizes himself as a political animal, I felt it better to exercise restraint and to deal with other aspects of the movie with only a reference or two as to what the whole thing is really about.

One Battle After Another is about revolution. The film begins in Reagan’s 1984 America and ends in the present day. It refers constantly to racism in today’s America… those who experience it by being born something other than white, and those who will do whatever necessary to … at the very least… freeze the country in place with the hope of a regression into a whiter, more Christian country than the one we now have.

One Battle After Another is scary, in that it could provide a handbook… or, at least, a reminder of what oppressed people ought to do. It is equally frightening to see what little was accomplished in those battles of the past and what has/ or more properly, has not happened for those advocates of change.

Director Anderson went out of his way not to mention any current politicians, political parties, or movements on either the left or the right. Still, it is an all-too-real depiction of what, at the very least, we are flirting with in modern day America.

“Be careful,” the aging revolutionary Leonardo DiCaprio says at the end of the movie to his 16-year-old daughter as she is about to go out into the world.

Meant to bring a smile of recognition to the filmgoer and a reminder of the understanding that the battle goes on, is her reassuring response:

“I won’t.”

Barney Rosenzweig

DY-NO-MITE

 A House of Dynamite, has arrived at Netflix, courtesy of director Kathryn Bigelow (Academy Award winner for The Hurt Locker) and it is… as one might well expect from this talented director… a well-made thriller; a  “whodunit” in the world of apocalyptic tales… a mystery in that no one in our nation’s defense system is able to discern which one of our ever-increasing list of enemies has precipitated this doomsday scenario.

The metaphor that explains the title is spoken near the end of the film “… everyone acts as if it is safe living in a house of dynamite simply because it hasn’t exploded yet.”

Do we need another film that explores that theme? I am gonna guess yes since I cannot remember when I last felt a sense of security about our interactions with other nations.

Everyone is good in the movie but I would single out Idris Elba who plays the President of the United States for his performance. In fairness to his fellow actors, Elba’s character is given the broadest range as we see him as a true politician and a loving husband before he gets the awful news of an imminent atomic attack.

And how is that possible? How is it that the President of the United States of America is among the last to learn of all that is going on? That is where filmmaker Bigelow challenges her audience. With hardly any warning that the timeline has changed and that the part of the story now seen on screen takes place hours before its predecessor, the director artfully moves her story along.

There is nothing so mundane as a message on the screen, or a clock on the wall. The decision to so subtly introduce an achronological narrative may prove confusing to some… many might even say “most” … but in retrospect there are clues along the way that this is how this powerful story is to be presented. Bigalow demands as well as commands your attention. Whatever the complaints… I have also heard folks questioning the film’s ending… the movie does work. It serves as an important reminder that while we are not truly safe in our house of dynamite, we can be secure in the knowledge that Ms. Bigelow’s Oscar nomination for direction of a motion picture is all but guaranteed.

Another current motion picture now streaming on Netflix is something else altogether. The film is Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler. I watched it twice. Not because I liked it, but because I could not believe… given all the hype I had heard about the film… that the movie could be such a bore.

Had I unwittingly dozed through some critical parts? Did I somehow miss an underlying subtle theme? Having just turned 88 years of age it is, I think, understandable that I might wonder about such possibilities.

As a fella who enjoys writing commentaries about films and such, I was also concerned about my built-in bias. I had avoided the movie for as long as I felt I could, simply because Adam Sandler was in it.

(A moment is herein provided for readers to take a pause and think of performers they simply cannot stand to watch.)

My first was Dorothy Malone. Trust me, you would have had to have been around in the 1940s and 50s to appreciate that reference. Next for me was Karen Black in the1970s. Twenty-some years later, after two decades sans any noted bias, Adam Sandler made his debut on Saturday Night Live and I stopped watching the late-night series until he was fired in 1995.

Having pretty much avoided anything in which Sandler appeared for almost thirty years, it was not easy for me to contemplate watching a movie in which he co-starred with anyone… not even George Clooney… but I persevered. And you know, Sandler wasn’t half bad. I understand he received some rave reviews (probably from folks who were grateful he did not play his usual juvenile idiot). Whatever the reason, this sub-standard movie is not his fault. While being generous, I will not blame George Clooney either. Who then gets the dubious credit for this mediocrity?

Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer wrote the screenplay and Baumbach was also its “director.”

Baumbach spent 132 minutes exploring his lead character’s angst as if Fellini had never made 8 ½, or Birdman had not already picked up four Academy Awards for a similar theme. It would appear Baumbach would be surprised to learn of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, or Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, or even Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Of course, it is perfectly appropriate to explore or even merely revisit a theme such as this, but one would hope that a fresh look at the subject of a man looking back over the wreckage of his life would be able to add something… anything… to the basic idea.

Filmmaker Baumbach? He drones for 132 minutes. And me? Other than the unregainable loss of those 264 minutes was the disbelief that so much energy had been invested in such tripe that I watched it again to see what I missed in that first screening.

Nothing.

Betty Comden and Adolph Green would say it best in Wonderful Town, “…what a waste of money and time.”

Barney Rosenzweig

REFLECTION

 

There is something a little intimidating about sitting down to compose a review on a rather large/potentially important motion picture that has received little or no “buzz” from other movie commentators or even much of a nod from the ubiquitous gang at “Rotten Tomatoes.”

The motion picture Nuremberg is such an event. Even with an all-too-ready concession that the movie fails in ways that I could only wish it did not, there is still an abundance of terrific stuff built into this effort to qualify this historical drama as one of (if not) the best movies of the year.

In today’s world of filmed entertainment, perhaps this film would have been a better presentation as a six-to-eight-hour mini-series. There is certainly enough story for that and I, for one, felt the two and a half hours of the film’s running time simply flew by.

Director James Vanderbilt’s work was solid and often inspired. I found that I could only wish that screenwriter Vanderbilt’s efforts were as worthy as those of his alter ego behind the camera.

The script was good in so many ways, but only occasionally did it approach greatness and too often was too thin … too convenient… too much of the time.

Russell Crowe as Hermann Goring gives a perfect performance… one, for which, I am sure, he will be recognized by his peers. Rami Malek, as US Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, is almost always interesting (Bohemian Rhapsody, Mr. Robot), but in some ways miscast in this role. Michael Shannon gives his usual solid performance of an American stoic, and Leo Woodall has a nice scene toward the movie’s end.

The mini-knock on Vanderbilt’s screenplay should be qualified because although much of this historical monument was given short shrift, the writer did not miss many opportunities at giving today’s audience the chance to make comparisons of the politics of mid-20^th century fascism and what is currently going on in the 2020s.

In many ways, Nuremberg is an old-fashioned movie. It is professionalism personified by every craft involved in the making of such a motion picture. It reminded me of a time when more than one of these movies came along on an annual basis.

Sadly, that is not so true these days.

And, as the calendar on my word processor reminds me, these days of 2025 are soon ending.

As of now, the only other movie I can reference with reverence is Blue Moon, the setting of which brings me to the world of theatre. In no particular order, the best of what I have seen in the world of entertainment include three tiny surprises on Broadway: the very campy, Oh, Mary, the very surprising to me, Dead Outlaw, and the incredibly brilliant, Maybe Happy Ending. Lest it go unmentioned, I must also reference the incredible staging of The Picture of Dorian Gray, which included the Tony Award winning performance of Ms. Sarah Snook.

Television… mostly in the series format… is what continued to float my boat. The Diplomat’s latest season, the vintage classic Gilmore Girls, Landman… and here I must pause to say that this year there has been no better writer of dialogue than Taylor Sheridan and no better actor at delivering a line than Billy Bob Thornton. In Landman, these two come together and it is a wow.

The Studio on Apple TV is toward the bottom of my best of 2025 list but it did make the cut… as did season four of The Morning Show although it was a drop off from the previous season number three. Perhaps seeing some very familiar scenes of the industry I write about in my upcoming autobiography, Before and After Cagney & Lacey; Memoir of a Hollywood Career from Mailroom to TV Maven was an influence.

Finalizing that book could also have led to my getting very hung up on a few other vintage shows during the year, namely Younger, Bunheads and Homeland… which I could watch and praise with equal enthusiasm every single year.

Some favorable comments, with a caveat or two, will be forthcoming in the NewYear about A House of Dynamite from director Kathryn Bigelow along with such highly touted Best Motion Picture entries as One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Sinners, Marty Supreme, and Bugonia.

Finally, near the top of the year’s best was the limited series, Adolescence. Every actor was perfect and the direction was nothing short of brilliant. Exceedingly rare anytime but particularly so in the year 2025.

Happy Holidays to all with a look-forward to 2026.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

 

 

GOOD THINGS (SOMETIMES) COME IN SMALL PACKAGES

          

It is the small movies that often give the reviewer the most trouble. There is concern that… just perhaps… no one else will “get” this movie the way the self-anointed film expert might, that by virtue of being part of this elite calling, and having chosen to place one’s commentary on paper and the internet, that somehow the critic is filled with insights and sensibilities that mere mortals in the theatre audience do not possess.

The less than academic commentator might also fear that a plethora of research will have to be done in order to “explain” to the reader just why this tiny movie works and for what reasons it might be important that attention must be paid… especially to something so small.

The tiny movie to which this column refers features one of America’s great wits, a man who, along with his collaborator of a quarter century, formed a partnership that became… arguably the most prolific songwriting team of all time. It is said as a compliment, but in fact is something akin to understatement, that this very same All-American partnership is the US equivalent of the internationally renowned team of Gilbert and Sullivan.

One could easily speculate that the bulk of Frank Sinatra’s fame and fortune would be garnered singing songs written by this pair… songs such as I Didn’t Know What Time it Was, Isn’t it Romantic, My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp, Dancing on the Ceiling, Glad to Be Unhappy, Where or When, It Never Entered My Mind, Little Girl Blue, Manhattan, My Romance. And that is just Sinatra. There was, of course, also Ella and Tony Bennett. There is the very real danger of filling this entire film review with nothing but song titles.

And then there is the fear of the whole thing being just a little inside baseball as the set up for the movie that is one particular night… one awful night… in the life of Lorenz Hart. For it is on this night that Mr. Hart’s erstwhile partner, Richard Rodgers, with whom he wrote more than 500 songs and 28 stage musicals, is having the world premiere of his latest musical… his first with a new partner… a circumstance made necessary, according to Mr. Rodgers, because of Mr. Hart’s alcoholism.

Mr. Rodgers’ new partner is Oscar Hammerstein II and the premiere, just down the street from the bar at Sardi’s where this little movie takes place, is, of course, Oklahoma! Note the exclamation point.

There is no equivalency of setting or circumstance that any self-professed theatre buff could possibly come up with that would resonate with more raw emotion, more mixed feelings.

The title of the movie is Blue Moon… also a song by Rodgers & Hart… and it stars Andrew Scott (who played the Hot Priest in the sensational Fleabag, Tom Ripley in the recent limited series, Ripley, and he also played every single cast member of the most recent edition of Uncle Vanya both on stage and film); Scott’s co-star is Ethan Hawke (Dead Poets Society) who essays the literary half of the famous duo. Margaret Qualley makes (what was for me, at least) an impressive debut as the object of Hart’s affection, while the always solid Bobby Cannavale reluctantly keeps Mr. Hart’s glass filled at the Sardi’s bar.

I took the liberty of removing Mr. Hawke’s top billing as it fit my sentence structure better since he played Lorenz Hart, who was in life billed in second position to Richard Rodgers. Still, make no mistake about it, this is Mr. Hawke’s movie. If no one else gets an Academy Award nomination for this film, I can assure you that Ethan Hawke will get his. Richard Linklater, who also helmed the impressive Hit Man, and who directed Blue Moon, could be busy at Oscar time as well. This was the first screenplay for Robert Kaplow, who authored the novel Me and Orson Welles, and I feel comfortable in saying he is another who will not go gently into that Oscar evening.

Hollywood made its bones on pretty people saying pretty things in pretty places. Blue Moon isn’t that… rather it is very bright people revealing very poignant and intellectually stimulating things in a most provocative environment. Consider yourselves lucky to be able to join the party at a theatre near you or on Amazon, Apple TV, or Fandango at home.

 

Barney Rosenzweig

A MIXED BAG

Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys bring their acting creds to Netflix in the limited series, The Beast In Me. It is a semi mystery… but mostly it is a suspense thriller (there is a difference). Claire Danes schlepps most of the water in this which, in less talented hands, would be a dreary eight hours.

Ms. Danes is simply one of the best acting talents in the business and everyone associated with this thing owes her a debt of gratitude. She not only makes the show worth watching… she is, in fact, virtually the ONLY reason to watch.

Rhys, who has shown his considerable acting chops in one of TV’s great classics (The Americans) can find little to do besides look creepy but credible. The rest of the acting ensemble do their best with this material, but the bravas all go to Ms. Danes, whose multiple gifts come through even when the show is not Homeland.

Peacock’s All Her Fault features Sarah Snook, another actress with such solid credentials as Broadway’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and the HBO series, Succession.

I didn’t care for this limited series…  and then I did… and then, once again, I didn’t. Snook is sorta one-note and although that note is a reasonably powerful one, it is… after all… but one note. The police work, characterized by actor Michael Pena, was interesting and almost all by itself made the eight-episode series work.

Parts of the limited series captured me… more than once after I was sure I had become permanently estranged from just whatever it was that was… or was not… going on. Overall, there was a  sense of relief over the simple fact that I didn’t know… and would likely never meet… either screen writer Megan Gallagher or novelist Andrea Mara. One or both have about the lowest opinion of men that I have ever seen projected on any screen anywhere. Michael Pena’s idealistic cop, good as it is, cannot balance out the incompetence and malevolence of the lead actors playing the husbands in this heavy-handed version of a sexist melodrama. Ladies, if you hate your husbands and need even a little bit of a confirmation of the validity of your feelings… this show is for you.

The Roses is a new motion picture, currently in a theatre presumably near you. It stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch and is a remake of War of The Roses which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner way back in the 20^th century. My crowd seemed to like this updated version better… and from a plausibility and believability perspective, I sort of agree. Sort of. Frankly, I could not get past the nagging feeling that the 1989 version was really the superior movie.

The best of the bunch was a DVD from Criterion that was the Thanksgiving screening for my grandson. His mother and I insist that at every family gathering which includes viewing entertainment at least one classic must be included… whether he wants it or not. This year it was the Preston Sturges film from 1941, Sullivan’s Travels, starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. Good stuff, and the good news is you do not have to wait for a special occasion to watch it.

 

Barney Rosenzweig