Such is the alternating lifestyles of both folk singer Herb McGwyer (Basden) and eccentric millionaire Charles Heath (Key). Charles has invited Herb to play an intimate concert of old 2000s hits for longtime fans on a hard-to-get-to island. Only when Herb arrives, he discovers the intimate audience consists of one lonely dude: Charles. Also Charlie invited Herb’s ex-girlfriend and achingly missed collaborator, the now married Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). It’s a setup that can go many ways, and yet all of the collaborators, including a warmly reflective Mulligan, take it to a place that is never anything less than amusing and cozy. Be warned though, even warmth can burn.
20. Superman
A quarter century on since a pair of claws and organic webshooters reinvented the modern superhero movie, the world of capes and cowls runs the risk of growing stagnant. There was even apprehension this time last year about one of the genre’s new darlings taking a stab at a character that has stumbled every other big screen suitor since the 1980s. Yet James Gunn’s Superman turned out to burst with an energy and joy that eludes most masked things nowadays, and it has gone a long way to restore confidence in not only men-in-tights summer tentpoles, but in the cinematic appeal of kindness unto itself.
David Corenswet makes for a Clark Kent who is unapologetically buoyant and bubbly, and Gunn in turn has the wisdom to juxtapose that square-jawed goodness against Rachel Brosnahan’s pitch perfect take on a Lois Lane. She’s her own Girl Friday. Known for his sense of irony and occasionally twisted humor, Gunn eschews both impulses while embracing an ebullience in a movie that has concern for everyone—even a squirrel in peril. The film features a number of the drawbacks which bedevil many modern superhero movies, including a surplus of characters and universe-building, but a picture that has the confidence and restraint to spend 20 minutes between Lois and Clark debating the finer points of ethical journalism, or the merits of punk rockery, really does know how to fly.
19. Eternity
The best love triangles to watch (if not experience) are those without an easy answer. In which case, ooh boy is Elizabeth Olsen’s Joan trapped in a good one during Eternity, David Freyne’s charming throwback to the high-concept rom-coms of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Like Robert Montgomery or Rex Harrison before her, Joan discovers her problems are only beginning when she gets to the afterlife and learns that in addition to reclaiming her youth, she must choose between her beloved husband of the last 67 years, Larry (Miles Teller), and that first great love who died during the Korean War and has waited for her ever since: Luke (Callum Turner).
The setup is strong, but it is the gentle amiability that Freyne cultivates in this deliberately paced laugher which ingratiates and beguiles. All three lead performances are played with empathy and affection, with Teller going against type as a nebbish sweater-vest on feet. Still, it’s really Olsen’s picture as a woman faced with an impossible choice and wisdom that seems to far exceed the years on her face. Freyne and co-writer Pat Cunnane’s screenplay never seek to downplay the potential tragedy or bittersweetness of their scenario, but those touches only heighten the absurdity of the rest of the material, with Zazu Myers’ retro Mediterranean chic production design becoming its own kind of cozy hell for a party of three.
18. Blue Moon
At Sardi’s restaurant, the legendary Broadway haunt in New York City’s Theater District, the caricatured portraits of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein hang in pride of place above the bar. As they should; this is the pair who invented the modern Broadway musical with Oklahoma! Nonetheless, it’s tragicomic that the portrait of Lorenz Hart, Rodgers’ first lyricist with whom he wrote songs like “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and of course “Blue Moon,” is located somewhere else entirely removed from his legendary co-writer. Hart is forgotten—another face in a sea of well-blended countenances.
