Marty Supreme: a lot of sound and fury

Poor Johnny Oleksinski of the NY Post and myriad other critics in thinking Josh Sadie's Marty Supreme is the best movie of 2025 - "It’s cinematic Mountain Dew. You’ll be wired for the entire 2½ hours." Not quite. With laurels like this - it has a 95% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes (and admittedly an 83% fan one) - I couldn't wait to run to a theatre to see it. But, alas, disappointment reigns. Okay I'll give the movie props for an exceedingly realistic re-creation of the early 1950s. And undoubtedly star Timothée Chalamet's acting is a tour de force as much as his metaphoric ping pong player character's tour of Europe and Japan is in the film. He deserves the Oscar (he's already been awarded two acclaims). I'll also credit Sadie with laboring an astonishingly meticulous depiction of the game of table tennis, and good direction generally. The problem is: is this a story to have slaved over so much? Sure, ping pong is a niche underrated - especially when you see the gamesmanship here - sport. And it's great (I guess) the Sadie is bringing it out of the doldrums. Some people would say who cares. But it doesn't matter what the subject is so long as the movie depicting it makes sense and flows with enough energy. Okay, Marty Supreme flows heavily and is fast-paced. But after awhile all this kinesis starts to become numbing and rather unrealistic. Scene after scene Marty is engaging in some over the top argument or scam or physical confrontation with family members, friends and indeed enemies. Can one person - let alone a nebbish ping pong player - display such extreme vim and vigour? And I couldn't figure out why he would steal money after a seemingly successful tour albeit as a freak athlete. If this is a movie about a little known but wondrous marginal sport I wanted to see it, not another gangland style picture. A phrase kept coming to mind, "full of sound and fury, signifying...." as I also looked at my watch wondering when the conclusion would come to this 2.29 minute somewhat extravaganza. Meanwhile, an over the hill Gwyneth Paltrow - why her? - as Marty's Hollywood heartthrob actress, was meh. But I must say it was a gas to see Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary not just in cameo but throughout as a ruthless businessman. Is more acting in Mr. Wonderful's future?

Chase's everyman a comic delight, and hi-def's loss of mystique

I tuned into CNN's I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not much hyped doc last night. Usually I don't get sucked into hype but I have a genuine interest in Chevy Chase going back to the first iteration of SNL characters. I never realized what an over the top outrageous guy (some have used other terms) in real life he was/is. Hard to believe he's now 82 and looks every bit it. What was almost as interesting was watching interviews with seminal characters in his rise to fame and how they have aged along with him, like Goldie Hawn (still looking pretty good) and SNL producer Lorne Michaels (who looks as aged as Chase) and how so many look a respectable "older person" as opposed to their hairy hippyish 70s versions. Regardless, on screen, there was always something uproariously funny and everyman about Chase's characters as per European Vacation (Amy Heckerling, 1985), Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah Chechik, 1898) or Caddyshack (Harold Ramis, 1980). He's one of those comedians I'll never get tired of watching.

I'm not sure if I like hi-definition video. I have been watching Turner Classic Movies (TCM) on an advanced/contemporary TV during my vacation stay (or "advanced" to me since I don't have TV at home) and the experience is somewhat jarring. I'm simply not comfortable with it. Sure the video is clearer - much clearer - almost like being on the set of the film shoot with the camera crew all around me. There is Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce (in Michael Curtiz's 1945 Mildred Pierce) walking out of a living room with her dead lover (Zachary Scott as Monte Beragon) sprawled on the floor - a little too close for comfort. Or Orson Welles as John Foster Kane (in Welles's 1941 Citizen Kane, photo above) marching into the city room of the New York Inquirer about to turn the staid newspaper into an exuberant journalistic force to be reckoned with. Whoa, I'm loving the scene but a little distance please! Or Anthony Newley's Charlie Blake making clumsy romantic overtures to Sandy Dennis's Sara Deever in the original version of Sweet November (Robert Ellis Miller, 1968). Don't get me wrong, it's astonishing that movies can be shown this clearly. Hi-definition technically refers to at least 480 vertical scan lines compared to standard definition or analogue viewing. It reminds me of video from some early-1960s television shows which also had a higher - or clearer - look to them and which to me are too realistic. Interestingly, when we see movies on the big screen in theatres, despite digital projection, the result is still the same as it's always been, a kind of "distance" between viewer and action. Perhaps it's simply what I'm used to, but by being so absolutely intrusive, hi-def takes away a certain mystique.