Marty Supreme (2025)

I saw many people mention Marty Supreme as a film in a similar vein to Uncut Gems. I would disagree. I think it's actually more in line with Inside Llewyn Davis. While not looking at grief in the way that film does, it gives us a central character who keeps making himself into the biggest obstacle to his potential success.

Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a young man who fancies himself as the world greatest table tennis player. Nobody else really thinks there's a future in that though, and very few people view it as a sport. Marty cannot really afford the life of a dedicated sportsman, which is why he spends some of his time hustling others with his friend, Wally (Tyler Okonma AKA Tyler The Creator). He also spends some of his time being far too intimate with the married Rachel (Odessa A'zion), but ends up in the orbit of an actress searching for a comeback (Kay Stone, played by Gwyneth Paltrow), her rich husband (Milton Rockwell, played by Kevin O'Leary), and a gangster (Abel Ferrara) with a stash of cash and a need for someone to temporarily care for his dog.

Directed by Josh Safdie, who also co-wrote the screenplay with regular collaborator Ronald Bronstein, this manages to play fast and loose within the confines of the sports movie structure, yet also give viewers something that hits a couple of very familiar beats. Based loosely on the real-life Marty Reisman, this keeps us alongside someone strangely captivating, despite being so selfish and loathsome, in a 1950s world accompanied by an enjoyably anachronistic soundtrack (although I was very dissappointed that "Just A Song About Ping Pong" wasn't used). While things go from bad to worse for Marty, he's so consistently self-destructive that any potential bad end feels absolutely expected, and even slightly deserved, removing some of the tension that would otherwise be thrumming throughout every scene.

Chalamet is absolutely superb in the main role, giving an impressively vanity-free performance that sees him playing the lousiest character he's yet played onscreen (and, let's not forget, he played a damn cannibal in one of his previous features). A'zion is also very good, and does well in her scenes with Chalamet to make you believe that she sees something in him that others may miss. Paltrow and O'Leary are both excellent, and both get scenes that allow them to steal the spotlight away from our main character for at least a moment or two, and Okonma excels in his supporting role. Ferrara is a lot of fun, being as mean and dangerous as can be, and there are also damn fine performances from Larry Ratso Sloman, Fran Drescher (who I wish had been in it for a bit longer), Isaac Simon, Penn Jillette, Luke Manley, and Koto Kawaguchi.

There's an excellent score from Daniel Lopatin, great production design throughout that keeps you grounded in 1950s New York (despite those soundtrack choices), and a necessarily impressive display of table tennis in a few main sequences. Some will find it insufferable, because of Marty being so insufferable, but I hope that most will find it as compelling and entertaining as I did. I may not rush to rewatch it, but I AM still thinking about some key moments that won't be leaving my memory any time soon. The fact that the tension feels slightly less palpable, undercut by the personality of Marty, actually makes it a more enjoyable viewing experience than it otherwise would have been. 

Oh, and it may have one of the best opening credit sequences of all time.

9/10

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Noir-vember: Hard Eight (1996)

It took me long enough, especially considering how big a fan of his filmography I am, but I finally got around to watching the feature debut written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, expanding his short, "Cigarettes & Coffee", from a few years earlier. A lot of things feel in place here that would recur throughout the next few decades, but it's also clear that the director is working on a smaller scale than he would prefer.

Philip Baker Hall plays Sydney Brown, a well-dressed and very polite man who decides to one day help a broke and broken man named John Finnegan (John C. Reilly). He doesn't just help him though. He, metaphorically speaking, teaches him to fish, showing him how to make his way safely and profitably through the waters of Las Vegas casinos. Things go well for a long time, but a situation develops when John falls for a cocktail waitress named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow). And when things start getting risky, that's when Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson) sees his chance to profit from the situation.

There's not much to discuss here when it comes to the plot and the characters. Everything is constructed well, Hall and Reilly are as watchable and captivating here as they have been in any other film roles, and the air of predictability is offset by the earliest scenes setting everything up as a tale more about people looking for ways to pay things forward than get some kind of payback.

While I think a number of the main cast members have done better work elsewhere, there's nothing to criticise in the performances of Reilly, Paltrow, or Jackson. There are also small moments for Philip Seymour Hoffman (stealing a scene, but not given enough time to steal the entire movie) and Melora Walters. Hall absolutely owns every minute of the runtime though. It would be a bit short-sighted, considering the near-200 roles he had in his decades-spanning career, to nominate this as his best ever performance, but I'm still tempted. If it's not the clear winner then it's pretty damn close.

The small cast, the way certain shots are framed, and the economy of the whole thing signify that it's a debut feature, but the confidence and ambition, as well as the main players, help it to feel like a well-made work of art helmed by someone already paving his way to even bigger and better things. This could have easily been a slight bit of entertainment, and it could have leaned more into the expected stereotypes and tropes of the gambling movie. The fact that it still feels so impressive and effective is all down to Anderson being one of the most brilliant and naturally-gifted directorial talents in modern cinema. You could say that it was clear from the very beginning that he had multiple aces up his sleeves.

8/10

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View From The Top (2003)

I am not sure if others felt the same way, but after reading Ayoade On Top (well, listening to the Audiobook, which I highly recommend) I knew that I had to see this film. In case you aren't aware of the connection, Ayoade On Top is a book in which Richard Ayoade critiques View From The Top in a very funny, very tongue-in-cheek, way, comparing the directorial choices and the performances to great moments in cinematic history. You could watch the film before reading his book, but I assure you that enjoying the book first is the best way to go about things. And don't worry about spoilers, as View From The Top is a film so predictable and bizarre that it's pretty much impossible to spoil.

All you need to know about the plot is that Gwyneth Paltrow plays Donna Jensen, a young woman who dreams of being a flight attendant, aiming for a coveted, classy, route that will take her to Paris. She also develops a nice little romance with Ted Stewart (played by Mark Ruffalo), but that might have to be pushed aside as she focuses on her career goals, all the while following the guidance in a book written by Sally Weston (Candice Bergen), who is essentially the queen of all flight attendants.

It's no surprise to see that this is the first, and so far only, movie script written by Eric Wald. It strives to be so inoffensively bland, and fits everything together like a jigsaw made for 4-year-olds, that it somehow becomes a film that you start to actively dislike. The tone just isn't right either, with the gentle humour (oh Mike Myers and your inward-looking right eye, chortle, chortle) married to material that has Paltrow smiling and winking at viewers, as if everyone is in on "the joke" together. We're not. Mainly because it never feels like there's a proper joke there.

Director Bruno Barreto has an eclectic filmography, and there are certainly other films from him that I am sure I will check out one day (although not because they sound great, they just sound like they could be more fun than this one). Hailing from Brazil, another consideration for the strange experience of View From The Top COULD be something lost in translation. Barreto may have wanted to make something quite different from the final product, it's hard to tell, but we can only judge what we're left with. And we are not left with anything good.

Paltrow doesn't do well in the lead role. Her performance is patronising (considering the kind of small town girl that she's playing) and she doesn't help the comedic tone by simply putting on her big eyes and being overly earnest for most of her scenes. That earnestness affects everyone, however, and Ruffalo is also doing far from his best work here, although he's a bit more likeable, mainly due to his ability to not slavishly follow some set guidelines for a rigid career path that could lead to losing out on love. Bergen does well in her few scenes, nicely fitting into the role of air flight royalty, and Christina Applegate is quite fun in her scenes, as she's the only character in the film who doesn't feel as annoyingly goody goody as everyone else. Myers is allowed to indulge himself with his cross-eyed schtick, and he's not good. He's not good at all, but that tends to be the way with Myers, he will fully commit to something and it either works or it doesn't.

I am sure that someone could enjoy this. There are maybe even quite a few people who would defend it to others. Change just a few details and it's not entirely unlike a thousand other stories of "young woman/man overcomes odds to achieve dream". It just makes enough strange choices, from script to casting, from the music selection to the overall direction of the film, to feel worse than so many of them. By any sane measurement, this is a long way from the top.

3/10

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Contagion (2011)

Yes, I was as curious as everyone else who had been watching Contagion over the past week or two. So I caved in and gave it a watch for myself. It had been sitting on my shelves for a couple of years, to be fair, and I figured that now was as good a time as any.

It's the tale of a global pandemic, as unbelievable as that sounds, which is all inadvertently started by a bat (I know, I know, impossible). The first person to be affected by things is Gwyneth Paltrow, getting such a dose of the virus that not even a vagina-scented candle can heal her. She is married to Matt Damon, and they have a teenaged daughter. Other people who end up closely working with the virus include Laurence Fishburne (as Dr. Ellis Cheever), Kate Winslet (Dr. Erin Mears), Marion Cotillard (Dr. Leonora Orantes), Elliott Gould (Dr. Ian Sussman), and an Australian (?) blogger, played by Jude Law.

Written by Scott Z. Burns and directed by Steven Soderbergh, allowing him to utilise the kind of interweaving and fractured narrative style that he seems to prefer for stories with a BIG picture, Contagion is a film that most definitely feels more like a documentary right now. The timeline shown at every step of the way is scarily close to what we're going through here and now. That may prove some comfort, but may also worry some people more who are already worried, so I am not sure if it's one to recommend at this time or not. Interestingly, the one main factor not explored enough in the movie is the HUGE economic impact, something many of us (who have lost jobs or income) are all acutely aware of right now. People being told to self-isolate without sick pay, people being laid off, many venues eerily empty, cinemas, galleries, and museums closed, and if you think folks are rushing out to buy a car or house in the middle of a global pandemic then you can think again. Contagion conveniently forgets to show us that massive upheaval, because these kind of things never affect the Matt Damons of the world.

The performances are all generally very good, especially Fishburne, Winslet, and Damon. The jarring exception to that rule is Law. I don't know who decided that his character needed an accent, and I still am not entirely sure where it was supposed to be from, but it's so bad that it ruins what could have been an absolutely fine, if unnecessary, addition to the plot. His character is there to antagonise those in charge, and to pull back the curtain, in a manner of speaking, while showing what is being hidden from the general public. The point being that it is often hidden because a) those who are in charge aren't much further ahead, in terms of knowing how to deal with the situation, and b) protecting the general public from their own actions is as important as curing the virus (something I think we can all agree on after having seen the disgraceful behaviour of many in recent days). I just wish that point could have been made without using Law's character.

Engrossing from start to finish, and with a nice balance between standard thriller tension and something far more grounded than you might usually get from this, Contagion is the global pandemic equivalent of The Andromeda Strain. Both are riveting without aiming to sensationalise things too much. And you get some scary facts interspersed throughout, although finding them out now may just be enough to help us consciously change some of our behaviours/habits when they most need changed.

It's also worth remembering the tagline: "nothing spreads like fear". Take heart in something fictional, even if it is hewing VERY close to where we are right now, and do so while taking whatever precautions have been deemed necessary to protect people from a particularly nasty bug doing the rounds right now. Then follow it up with Osmosis Jones. It's the virus/Laurence Fishburne double-bill you never knew you needed.

8/10

Contagion is available digitally, which saves you battling to the shops to buy it.