MINI MOVIE REVIEWS 2025—PART III

This is the third and final installment of my Mini Movie Reviews of some of this year’s nominated films. They have nods not just for the all-important (to those in the movie biz) Oscars, but also the recent Golden Globes and Critics Choice, and this weekend’s SAG Awards, the entity for which Mr. X and I vote.

The SAGs are actually the reason I see so many films, most of which I definitely did not want to see this year! But I feel it’s just not right to vote unless you’ve seen all the performances, (and stunts, in our case,) and all the tech categories for many of the other guilds and academies.

As a matter of fact, the nominating committees could not have possibly seen The Substance or else it would never have received any nods, or in some cases already, wins for Demi Moore!

And let me not bury the lead—Sing Sing is by far the best film of this year! I had been invited to about fifteen screenings of it, but a prison film with an all-male cast did not call out to me, so I passed every time. But in the interest of fairness, once Colman Domingo was nominated for a SAG Award for his performance in it, I had to force myself to see it before I voted. I’m glad I did because it is soooo powerful! The rest of my mini review is a few paragraphs down.

But here are my thoughts on this final batch before the SAGs this Sunday, once again in the order in which we watched them:

The Brutalist—This was more than disappointing; I had such high hopes for it. Mr. X said, “The movie is as stupid as the credits” which are sideways and crooked!!! There are soooo many holes. And way too many different accents.

If it were a true story, that would be one thing.  But it’s a weird convoluted made-up tale, which is just tedious and confusing, and means nothing.

I was pretty shocked at just how meh it is.  After the first three hours, (that’s right—it’s way over three hours!,) I told Mr. X that I didn’t find it special, thinking that he’d tell me I missed the significance. But, to my surprise, he totally agreed, which made me feel better.

I’m a fan of Adrien Brody, but he definitely does not deserve all the awards he’s been getting this season for this performance. Just sayin’. Even industry peeps are sheep, in this case fooled by the length of the film, I feel.

And by the way, even though this movie is brutal, on several levels, the title refers to the type of architecture the main character is known for. You’re welcome for clearing that up.

Deadpool and Wolverine—I had no idea what was going on at all the entire time, but I always love seeing Hugh Jackman, my last remaining celebrity crush. And let me tell you—Hugh absolutely gives it his all! And in a means-nothing movie, to boot. (In the middle of one particularly emotional scene for him, Mr. X actually declared, “Winner!,” even though, of course, Hugh is not nominated for anything.)

In addition to Hugh being so good, the movie is often amusing, mainly with fourth-wall-breaking lines. I’ve always thought Ryan Reynolds is funny, but I just can’t get behind him right now with all the name-calling and legal-haggling between his very creepy wife, Blake Lively, and her recent director/co-star, Justin Baldoni. All the drama is making Ryan look not very good.

A Complete Unknown—This was more interesting than I had expected. I actually didn’t know what to expect. I’ve never known much about Bob Dylan except that I once saw him in concert from the front row center, (because I took a close friend for her birthday, not because I wanted to see him,) his son lives not too far from me, he occasionally appeared on the Chabad Telethon when I did, and…he once asked one of my best friends to marry him!!! And I once read that he liked his women to look a bit dirty. Eww.

Timothée Chalamet was shockingly good as Dylan. I soooo admire that he not only learned to sing like the music star, but to play guitar! That is soooo impressive. I thought that I was going to vote for him until I saw Colman Domingo in Sing Sing.

I’m definitely voting for supporting actor Edward Norton. But why in the world was Monica Barbaro, who played Joan Baez, nominated for not just a SAG but an Oscar??? She did basically nothing but sing a bit! That is one of the most head-scratching nods in history. Knowing she was nominated for a few awards was actually distracting—I kept waiting for her to have at least one moment that made me say, “Wow,” but it never came. She didn’t do anything wrong; it was just a nothing part to begin with.

Sing Sing—There is no comparison—this is hands-down the best film of the year! With the best cast. My mind is blown.

It’s the tale of a prison acting program. As it went along, I told Mr. X this must be a real story, or else they would have made it a fictional prison, not the most famous one, Sing Sing. And it turns-out that it is all true.

Even though the “actors” were all perfect, I said that, outside of the star, Colman Domingo, they must be the real guys because I had never seen any of them before. But how can so many amateur actors be that good??? That real-life program must be some great teacher. I once auditioned for a TV show to play…myself! No kidding—it had my name on the breakdown! But guess what? I did not get the part. To play myself!!! So I know how hard it is to do so, especially for non-pros.

As far as Mr. Domingo goes, he is really brilliant in this one. It can’t be easy to work with mostly non-professional actors, especially all the emotional scenes with Clarence Maclin, playing his then-incarcerated self. It’s all mind-boggling.

There’s so much to say about this story, but since these are mini reviews, I heavily suggest you research the movie a bit for yourselves, whether you even see this movie or not. You will be amazed. Let me just say, the real John “Divine G” Whitfield, (who co-wrote and co-produced this film,) spent more than twenty-four years in prison for a murder he did not commit! I’m sick over it. I hope all this success now helps him heal more than a bit.

The Piano Lesson—There is no weak link in this one. Every member of the cast is excellent. And interesting. I’m thrilled that Danielle Deadwyler is nominated for a SAG Award, while disgusted that she didn’t get an Oscar nod.

And John David Washington was outstanding! He talked faster than I do the whole time, which is impressive in itself, but he did it all in a spot-on Southern accent! The interesting thing to me is that I didn’t know the actor’s name as the film was going along, but I was really enjoying his performance. I was wondering where they found such a good unfamiliar actor. And then, in just one short sentence of his, I thought he sounded like Denzel Washington a bit. And I immediately realized that he’s…Denzel’s son! And his other son directed, while Denzel and one of his daughters were on the producing team. What a creative family affair.

Meanwhile, The Piano Lesson is the movie version of a very famous 1987 August Wilson play. Not a fun story, but an interesting one.

The one funny thing for Mr. X and me is that we saw a couple of Wilson’s plays many years ago, and we got this one confused with his Two Trains Running, so the entire time we watched the movie, we kept waiting for a character to say, “I want my ham!” Samuel L. Jackson’s character mentioned being a ham early on in the narrative, and one of the guys in it seemed a tad slow, as the ham-wanter we remembered is, so we assumed we had the correct play. I can’t believe we were disappointed to not hear a line we’ve been talking about for a few decades now!

Wicked—First let me say that I’m not a fan of the stage musical of Wicked. It’s not bad, but I’ve seen it three times, (two here in LA, once on Broadway,) and just don’t love it like so many people do. So I saved this film for last. [Note: If I had seen it any time earlier, I would have done a full review of it on its own—there’s so much more to say about it that I can in a mini review!]

I totally recognize the gargantuan effort that went into making it. But when I asked Mr. X how it could not be winning every Best Picture, (or any actually,) he said, “It lacks magic.” But then he loved Jeff Goldblum, (about whom I’ll tell you my fun personal story in a minute,) but that was just a minute or so of his dancing. So he was not loving the movie.

My main annoyance is not about the movie itself, but this discrepancy: how can Ariana Grande, (who’s using her full birth last name, Grande-Butera, in the credits,) be nominated as the Supporting Actress, when Cynthia Erivo gets the nods as Best Actress??? They could not be more equal! They even have that “Favored Nations” billing. It’s insane. I want to know who put her in this category!

Also annoying is this: I know that they want to make the money for two films instead of just the one Wicked should have been, but it’s just crazy to make it into two parts—this one and the second one next year. And, at two hours and forty minutes, Part I is waaaay too long. It got tedious very fast. We had to keep pausing it to take breaks. (Thank goodness we watched it at home and not in a theatre!)

But the dance scenes are amazing, the sets and even graphic designs are stunning, and above all, Ariana is wonderful! I knew she could sing, but her work here is a revelation. And who knew she was such a good little actress?

But it was really enough already. Now I’ll have to wait until next year to hear the ladies sing my favorite song from this show, For Good.

Speaking of something good, here’s my Jeff Goldblum story: I had been doing my local TV show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue, for a couple of years, and was at an industry screening, when the big hand of the guy behind me reached out and grabbed (in a nice way) my shoulder. I turned around and there was Jeff, asking me, “Are you that girl on TV?” When I said yes, he said, “Oh, you’re marvelous,” in his inimitable Jeff Goldblum way. We talked for a few minutes after the movie, and that was that.

And then about a decade later, three of my besties and I were at a club to see Jeff and his jazz band, the drummer of which my friend knew. She and I were standing there before the show, when Jeff came over to me, and asked if I remembered that we met! I was so shocked that I couldn’t even talk, so, thinking that I did not remember, he told me the whole origin story that I just related here. I can’t tell you how impressed my friend was. She ran over to the other girls and shouted, “Jeff Goldblum loves Karen!!!”

And that’s a wrap for my 2025 Mini Movie Reviews! So lastly, (and perhaps most importantly,) let me tell you that I hope to live-tweet at least some of the SAGs, especially the arrivals, this Sunday. (And I’ll do it all again next Sunday for the Oscars.) I’m @MajorCelebrity on that platform, so if you don’t already follow me, you may want to do that right now. One of my Super Bowl tweets received over five thousand views, so you don’t want to be the only one to miss-out on my bon mots!