Dave Levora told Mike Schulz how he regrets not being present when MS saw Madame Webb: “I love it when you just tee off on a film,” he said. Levora’s not the only one — Darren Pitra presumably shares it. And good kids who eat their cereal get a healthy dose of irony with each spoonful!

The films in questions:

• Madame Webb, directed by S J Clarkson and starring Dakota Johnson in the title role, alongside Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott, it’s as bad as all the notices it’s received say it is, but not so-bad-it’s-good bad. Read Schulz’s review, save your money, and watch it when it streams with the radio on or a book open or some other form of media that will relieve the headache you might otherwise get from Clarkson’s folly.
  
• Bob Marley: One Love, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Aston Barrett Jr, Anthony Welsh, Sevana, Hector Lewis, Michael Gandolfini, Nadine Marshall, and Henry Douthwaite, was the N° 1 film its first weekend — a feat no one was expecting. It still seems inexplicable, given how bland the proceedings are, and its musical sequences, though lovely, don’t have the climactic feel of Bohemian Rhapsody.
  
• The Last Picture House had booked all of the nominees in this year’s Academy Awards races for Best Animated and Live-Action Short Film. (They would have had the Best Documentary entries as well, but they had to make room for Marley.) Surely, there’s something that might buy your eye!
  

Regarding previews:

• Drive-Away Dolls, directed by Ethan Coen, starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon — and judging from the plot-description, it sounds like Raising Arizona, albeit with more viscera. Can’t wait!
  
• Ordinary Angels, directed by Jon Gunn, starring Hilary Swank, Alan Ritchson, Nancy Travis, and Tamala Jones. Meg Tilly co-wrote the script with Kelly Fremon Craig — this was the occasion for our intrepid trio to play “Remember When?” about Meg Tilly from her salad days. Although it is, as Tony Soprano described it, “the lowest form of conversation,” “Remember When?” is a lot of fun for cretins like us.
  

“Bob Marley: One Love,” “Madame Web,” and the 2024 Oscar-Nominated Short Films: Animated and Live Action