Alone at the Movies

Netflix, Jay Kelly and Train Dreams

In the long-ago of my youth, I would often defend my pessimism as realism; I didn’t actually know much about the world. Ever a contrarian, though, as I have aged and hopefully wised up, I find my reactionary nature producing some strain of homunculine optimism, born perhaps of an inchoate urge to help. Still mired in the probable hopelessness of our global predicament, I guess I try to find wins where I can. 

This is all (somewhat) germane to the conversation at hand because a big company bought out another big company. More specifically, as most will likely already be aware, Netflix has set upon and devoured what’s left of the once-towering Warner’s imprint, including the properties of HBO and its subsidiaries. It’s a rich-get-richer situation — and more of the same, on that front — but it has raised the ire of cinephiles because, as Netflix Plutocrat-in-Chief Ted Sarandos has affirmed, it could well be another nail in the coffin of the collective movie-going experience as we have known it. 

One of my dear friends, whose intellect and integrity I find (mostly) unassailable, but who, by his own admission, can also be a bitchy old bastard, was the first of my intimates to sound the alarm. This prompted a brief, spirited exchange about the precipitously shifting identity of movie fandom (don’t like that word but it fits), the dwindling of the universality of theater-going and, most pointedly, an impasse about the value and importance of the collective experience of the cinema. 

What that (text-based) conversation reinforced for me, which I failed to address in situ, is that I love movies themselves more than I love going to the movies. This is not an apologia for corporate centralization or the further micro-segmentation of interests, but it really is the medium itself, rather than the means by which I take it in, that has long been so life-giving. To be crass and current, a lot of movie houses are more dive-bar than palace these days and, while rep theaters are going great guns in the more densely populated zones, attendance out here in the perimeter is generally scant. I hate to agree with Sarandos, but the audience does seem to have spoken; whether he created the exodus is a conversation for another forum. 

I don’t watch movies on my phone, except in times of duress, being hypocritically faithful to the vision of the artist. On the other hand, though, I grew up watching and learning about movies through butchered, pan-and-scan VHS versions at a rate of probably 10 to one versus theatrical ones, so I didn’t exactly experience Lawrence of Arabia (1962) as it was intended to be seen. 

Part of me can’t help but fall back to the position that Netflix, for all its corporate evils, does seem to be in the business of bringing more movies to more people. The machinery of theatrical distribution has, of late, proven to be rusty on its best day, completely unadaptable to changing preferences on its worst. While I’m still eager to see Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair on a big screen, I am also grateful that I have ready access to more modestly sized but equally artful offerings like the two described below. 

JAY KELLY is very much a white-man-of-a-certain-age project, about its titular movie star, played by George Clooney, living through a self-induced A Christmas Carol-style re-evaluation of his entire adult life. Kelly is still thriving professionally in his middle-60s, but the real stuff of life remains distant, maybe irreparable in some cases, unattainable in others. 

On an ill-advised trip to Europe with his rapidly dwindling entourage, our lonely star walks through some of the formative moments of his career and parenthood in a beautifully photographed, tragi-comic examination of a life lived, choices made. 

As far as old-school movie stars go, Clooney is about as good at the handsome hangdog thing as anybody, and here he has preeminent hilarious sad-sack Adam Sandler as his foil/long-suffering manager and friend. 

It’s a refined, well-observed melodrama from Noah Baumbach (co-written with Emily Mortimer), as funny as it is poignant. R. 132M. NETFLIX.

TRAIN DREAMSwas rather quietly released a couple of weeks ago. Adapted by the makers of Sing Sing (2023) from Denis Johnson’s novella, it describes the life of an Idaho logger in the early 20th century. He, Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), dogged by tragedy and the spectre of death, remains somehow thoughtful, kindly and curious, if almost entirely alone. 

And, really, that’s about the arc of it. But Train Dreams is mesmeric in its tone and pace, gorgeously photographed, reverent of the wonders of its world and shocked at the horrors of which it is capable. 

It’s about as earnest as they come, but there isn’t anything pandering or disingenuous about it. PG13. 102M. NETFLIX.

John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.

NOW PLAYING

ELLA MCCAY. Comedy-drama about a newly elected governor (Emma Mackey) with a complicated family. PG13. 115M. BROADWAY.

ETERNITY. A newly dead woman (Elizabeth Olsen) must choose between two loves (Miles Teller, Callum Turner) to spend the afterlife with. PG13. 114M. BROADWAY.

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2. Sequel to the Chuck E. Cheese-esque animatronic horror. PG13. 104M. BROADWAY, MINOR.

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (2000). Jim Carrey, mean in green. PG. 104M. BROADWAY.

JUJUTSU KAISEN EXECUTION. Anime action-adventure about supernatural chaos in Tokyo. R. 90M. BROADWAY.

KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR. The four-and-a-half-hour, three-part 2006 Quentin Tarantino epic starring Uma Thurman all at once. NR. 275M. BROADWAY.

THE LEMURIAN CANDIDATE. A trippy Mt. Shasta hike goes sideways in this psychedelic buddy comedy-drama with aliens. R. BROADWAY. 

NOT WITHOUT HOPE. Nautical nightmare about buddies stranded at sea on a fishing trip. R. 119M. BROADWAY.

PREDATOR: BADLANDS. A runt alien hunter (Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi) goes after the biggest game on a hostile planet, half a droid (Elle Fanning) in tow. PG13. 107M. BROADWAY.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. Seasonal scares with a psycho Santa. R. 95M. BROADWAY.

WICKED: FOR GOOD. Elphaba and Glinda reunite from opposite sides of the yellow brick tracks to save Oz in the sequel. PG. 137M. BROADWAY, MINOR.

ZOOTOPIA 2. Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman return to voice the rabbit and fox crimefighting duo in the animated comedy adventure. PG. 108M. BROADWAY, MINOR.

For showtimes, visit catheaters.com and minortheatre.com.

This article appears in Sacred Groves.