Movie Review: Presence


The new movie “Presence” plays like a combination of Poltergeist (1982) and any one of the seven Paranormal Activity movies released from (2009-2021). The most interesting fact about this movie is the very unusual way the director Steven Soderbergh shows scene transition, with the end of the scene, a few seconds of black screen, and then immediately into the next scene. This is a technique I have never seen before, and gives a very unusual look and feel to this movie.

This story follows the same basic idea as Poltergeist. When there is a person who passes away under corrupt circumstances, the person’s spirit is not able to ascend to where it would normally go and instead haunts houses, to either prevent another wrong or right the wrong that happened to them when they died.

Presence stars Lucy Liu as Rebekah in one of her few starring roles in recent years and Chris Sullivan as Chris, who was one of the main stars of the great television series, “This is Us”, which ran from (2016-2022). Liu and Sullivan seem very unlikely as a married couple, something even mentioned during this film. They have two children, both of them in their late teens within a very dysfunctional family with a large number of arguments and foul language, especially from the teenage son Tyler played by Eddy Maday. The daughter Chloe played by Callina Liang is in constant conflict with her brother with arguments that constantly escalate and the underlying cause is that Rebekah favors Tyler over Chloe.

Throughout this film, there are several scenes that include the presence of a ghost, that eventually forces the family to hire a professional medium – much like the plot of Poltergeist.

The dramatic ending is both mostly unexpected and well done, with a final ending scene that was impressively acted by Lucy Liu.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a high 87% and I mostly agree with this rating, due to the different director techniques introduced by Solerberg and the acting.

Movie Review: A Complete Unknown


The new movie “A Complete Unknown” is one of those high-quality end-of-year film releases where we know immediately that the main star, Timothée Chalamet, who plays Bob Dylan, is a 100% shoo-in for an Academy Award nomination for best actor and most likely the movie will be nominated for best picture.

Anyone seeing this movie will appreciate the work and practice it must have taken for Chalamet to master Dylan’s voice, which arguably has an unusual, but not high-quality sound. The reason why Dylan was so significant is that he became relevant at the exact perfect time in the 1960s and is more well known for the lyrics of the songs he wrote rather than the quality sound of the music. In the 1960s Bob Dylan was known as the The Voice of a Generation.

The movie A Complete Unknown is a story told by showing different musical performances by Dylan, as he starts as a completely unknown singer, wandering the streets of New York City to a few years later one of the most famous people in the world. During his early years, Dylan cheated on two of his girlfriends at the same time, Joan Baez, played by Monica Barbaro, and Sylvie Russo, played by Elle Fanning. The back and forth breakups and reconnecting with these two women is a big part of this story.

Chalamet also did a great job mastering Dylan’s tired, drunk-like way of talking, sometimes seeming like he is about to fall asleep or fall over while walking around or even standing up. There was no obvious showing of drug use or heavy drinking to explain Dylan’s tired-like and word-slurring demeanor, but the chain-smoking by Dylan and too many other performers was annoyingly too much.

This story demonstrates, like some recent Whitney Houston movies and documentaries, how difficult it is to gain the heights of worldwide fame and then have to deal with the many downsides that come with a huge spotlight that never ends. One of the better scenes was when an audience booed Dylan for singing songs that were different than what they expected, angering Dylan who never wanted anyone but himself dictating the direction of his singing career.

One of the subplots in this movie, I thought was completely unnecessary was the frequent visits that Dylan and Pete Seeger made to a mute and dying Woody Guthrie in a hospital. This part of the story should not have been such a large part of this film, especially since Woody Guthrie, played by Scoot McNairy never says a word during all of the hospital scenes.

Actor Edward Norton plays singer/manager Pete Seeger and friend of Bob Dylan in a part that was relatively small, considering the importance of Seeger discovering Dylan in the early 1960s. There is a great deal of singing in this film, as the story is connected by several different Dylan and Dylan/Baez singing performances, with many of their most famous hits.

Overall the acting in his film is very good by all of the actors, with a strong possibility that Chalamet will win his first ever Academy Award for best actor.

Overall, I agree with the middle-of-the-road Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 79% for this movie and give it a solid recommendation.

Movie Review: Babygirl


It is hard to fully understand why in the last few weeks, two major respected and well-known actresses, Amy Adams in “Nightbitch” and Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl” both with many credits and 30 years+ in the industry would make two movies that involved degrading and humiliating themselves. Both Kidman and Adams have millions of dollars, with Kidman having won one Oscar and 5 nominations and Adams having 6 nominations. Considering Adams and Kidman’s clout in Hollywood that includes the ability to take or reject any project they want, it is hard to understand why either of them would take projects like these.

The story of Babygirl is of an older woman in her late 50s, who is the CEO of a major manufacturing company and is only sexually satisfied by being humiliated. This humiliation includes being ordered around and even being told to drink milk from a plate like a house cat, reminding me of the scene where Amy Adams ate raw meat like a dog in a cafeteria in front of many onlookers. What is going on during some of the recent last movies to be released at the end of 2024? At a certain age, Adams is 50 and Kidman is 57, there has to come a time when an actor realizes, as they said many times during the four “Legal Weapon” movies, “I am too old for this sh**”.

I found most of Babygirl difficult to watch, at times even feeling sorry for Nicole Kidman taking this role. There is not much of a story here, other than some masochistic sexual encounters between Romy, played by Kidman, and a young man who is an intern at her company Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson. There is also conflict between Samuel and Romy’s husband Jacob played by Antonio Banderas, when he finds out about Romy’s affair, nothing new there.

The Rotten Tomatoes reviews for Babygirl are way too high at 78%, with my rating at 60%, which is the consensus review on IMDB and a recommendation to miss this film.