danieljfarthing

In pretentiously intellectual drama "After The Hunt" Yale philosophy profs Julia Roberts (married to Michael Stuhlbarg) & Andrew Garfield get drawn into ambiguous ethical, moral, & legal waters by an incident involving student Ayo Edebiri (pulling in the likes of Chloë Sevigny). Rights, wrongs, & motivations are skewed & fudged - which may be debut writer Nora Hunt's point, but it doesn't make for comfortable or engaging viewing over 2hrs 18mins - especially with Roberts seeming so desperate to shed the old "Pretty Woman" stereotype that's already long gone. Director Luca Guadagnino doesn't mind sacrificing entertainment for 'art' - and this pomposity is typical of him.

Play-like true-tale drama "Blue Moon" (adapted by debut writer Robert Kaplow from letters between famed 47yr old songwriter Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke (great)) & college student Margaret Qualley) is set in Bobby Cannavale's bar on the 1943 opening night of 'Oklahoma' - the first musical that Hart's writing partner Dick Rodgers (Andrew Scott (terrific)) instead wrote with Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) due to Hart's alcoholism etc. As Rodgers & Hammerstein celebrate their hit, the talkative Hart stews, plays nice, yearns for Qualley, and drowns in bourbon. Props to director Richard Linklater for eliciting top drawer performances in such a warm yet melancholic movie.

2021's "The Black Phone" was a terrific 1980s-based modern psycho horror... sadly it's cash-in sequel "Black Phone 2" is lamentably weak. Set four years on, the original's surviving siblings (Mason Thames & Madeleine McGraw) are haunted again by images of children murdered by boogie-man Ethan Hawke (who hardly features this time at all btw - be warned) getting drawn to an isolated, snow-covered forest camp alongside other forgettable characters (like Demián Bechir & Miguel Mora) for a show-down. Scott Derrickson directed again, and also co-wrote it again C Robert Cargill, but everything about it is an flaccidly pale imitation of the original. A pathetically yawnsome turd. Flush!