Blue Moon plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

You Gotta Have Hart

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                           Blue Moon (Richard Linklater, 2025)

                                                rated R   100  min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 No Spoilers Alert this time because the focus on famed Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart presents aspects of a well-known person’s life which are easily found on the Internet (although while Robert Kaplow’s script is noted as based on letters between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland I’m sure  there was a lot of creative license employed in the numerous dialogues which construct this intensely-verbal narrative—appropriate given that our protagonist was known for his well-chosen words put to music).

WHAT HAPPENS: On the night of March 31, 1943 Lorenz (“:Larry”) Hart (Ethan Hawke) exits the Broadway theatre debuting the (now-famous) musical, Oklahoma! with music by Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott), lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) rather than Hart who’d been the go-to partner with Rogers for over 20 years on their many stage works until his drinking/undependability led Rogers to seek a new collaborator.  As Hart retires to the (at first near-empty) bar at Sardi’s restaurant across from the theatre he gets into lengthy conversations with bartender Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) and Army sergeant-on-leave pianist Monty Rifkin (Jonah Lees), dismissing the quality of the new musical—while sullenly acknowledging it’ll become a huge hit (he was sure correct about that!)—and talking wistfully of his hoped-to-be new love, art student Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), despite his admission she’s 20 to his 47, along with the reality he could be just as attracted to men (with that anger-inducing reputation about him known in the public realm).

 

 As the night goes on, with Larry awaiting the arrival of Rogers, Hammerstein, and many others when the play concludes as they all gather in this noted hot-spot to await the reviews in the city’s late edition newspapers, we have considerably more conversations between Larry and author E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy); Elizabeth (who accepts the flowers he bought for her but never receives his other intended gifts), although her message to Larry is they have no future as lovers both because she’s smitten with another art student and what she really wants tonight is to meet Rogers in hopes of becoming his production designer (as he leaves Sardi’s he gives her a ride to his Oklahoma! celebration party); Rogers, who offers Larry the opportunity to write some new songs for a revival of their A Connecticut Yankee musical (which does happen later, despite Rogers’ concerns Larry will revert to his alcoholism); and Hammerstein, with both trading compliments (unclear how sincere they are).  After everyone else clears out Larry talks some more with Eddie and Marty, downs some shots that debunk his intended sobriety, then leaves although it’s not clear if he’s really having his own party that night.  A few pre-credits graphics tell us Rogers and Hammerstein went on to become Broadway’s most successful musicals partners while Hart, 7 months after the events of this film, was found passed out drunk on the streets of Manhattan, died a few days later in a hospital.  (If you’d like more plot details [it’s been another one of those busy weeks for me], you can go to go to this site.) 

SO WHAT? My main reason for wanting to see Blue Moon was to find out how valid is Ethan Hawke’s Oscar nomination as Actor in a Leading Role; well, he certainly proved how worthy that honor is with a magnificent performance that almost wants to make me support him for the award except I’m also highly impressed with Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025), ae well as Michael B. Jordan in Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025), who plays 2 roles (!), and probably Golden Globe victor Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie, 2025)—haven’t had a chance to see it yet, hope it streams before Oscars night—I also haven’t seen Wagner Moira in The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025) which I know next to nothing about, so until that one should come my way I’ll use it as a straw-man replacement so I can get Russell Crowe into this category for his fine work in Nuremberg (James Vanderbilt, 2025), a film I’d also like to see competing for Best Picture as I'd replace Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, 2025).  

 

 High praise is due to Hawke (a frequent Linklater collaborator since Before Sunrise [1995]) for successfully taking on the burden of not only being in every scene but also (as best I recall) being in close to every shot in all those scenes.  His powerful presence reminds me of another “blue” film where the impact of the lead performance was so strong it brought my rating up to 4 stars when Cate Blanchett dominated Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, 2013) so well she won a Best Actress Oscar. Whether Hawke also brings home the prize remains to be seen (full categories' lists here [you'll have to scroll down a bit]), but he’s a legitimate contender.  Before this film I knew little about Hart and his Broadway musicals except in his bio I found him to be the lyricist to a few songs I’m aware of—"Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Where or When”—so now I know/appreciate him more.  One other thing I appreciated about this film is how the events seem to unfold in real time with no activity-compression through editing (although I’m sure it took judicious editing to weave these scenes together so they progress effortlessly), enhancing the drama as it feels spontaneous in its flow, another reason you might appreciate seeing it for yourself.

 BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Blue Moon was released to domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on October 17, 2025 with its widest run in 689 of them (has grossed $2.1 million [$2.7 million globally] so far), but now it’s down to 25 so your best option is streaming where it rents for $5.99 from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.  The CCAL encourages viewing as Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 91%, Metacritic average score is 78%, as this ultimately-sad narrative shows a lot in a condensed form about Hart’s life with an Ethan Hawke performance well-deserving of his Oscar nomination, the main reason to see this fascinating film.  Stephanie Zacharek of TIME agrees: "Blue Moon is both a modest movie and a dazzling, generous work. […] It’s about unhappiness as creative fuel, about friends and creative partners torn apart by demon drink, about the ways in which two human beings can live forever within the miracle of a song. It’s the kind of film a director and actor make when they’re completely simpatico, as Hawke and Linklater are, having sustained a working partnership since 1995's Before Sunrise—you can’t make a movie as simultaneously joyous and melancholy as this one is without being fully in tune with each other.”  

 

  But, of course, some others won’t agree, such as Kevin Maher of The Times (U.K.): "One of the most committed performances of Ethan Hawke’s career is cruelly undercut by some ridiculous “shrinking” tricks [Hart was under 5 feet, much-taller Hawke was shot to appear that way; …] And when a rare wide shot captures Hart full-bodied in the men’s room, and standing by a seemingly oversized urinal, it appears as if we’ve been teleported back to the shires, and Frodo Baggins is attempting to use Gandalf’s facilities. […] it’s fundamentally limited, like an experimental one-act play that’s mostly devoid of dramatic tension. I’m not convinced that a full-height Hawke would have saved it either.”  While I’m supportive of this film you can choose for yourself while you attend to my usual closing device of a Musical Metaphor, Rogers and Hart’s “Blue Moon,” written with several discarded lyrics for a couple of MGM movies before becoming a radio hit in 1934.  It’s been recorded endlessly with my choice of Ella Fitzgerald's version, as it speaks to Larry’s sadness along with his hopeful salvation from Elizabeth, even though we sense that never finalized.  However, given Hart’s attempt to interest Rogers in writing some comedic material here’s another “Blue Moon,” this one a doo-wop version by The Marcels, which might be silly to a purist, yet they had a hit with it in 1961.

            

SHORT TAKES

           

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

               

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

            

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 39,056.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Bugonia plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

 An Even-More Potent Andromeda Strain

(title extrapolated from a noted 1971 sci-fi movie directed by Robert Wise,

based on a 1969 Michael Crichton novel)

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                            Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025)

                                            rated R   119 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 

WHAT HAPPENS: Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) is the successful CEO of pharmaceutical conglomerate Auxolith when she’s kidnapped one day at the end of her drive home by Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons)—who’s got a grudge against her because his mother (Alicia Silverstone) was in one of Fuller’s medical trails which went wrong, leaving the woman in a comatose condition—and his autistic cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis).  When Fuller wakes up from being drugged she finds herself in the men’s basement in handcuffs and leg cuffs with her hair shorn to keep her from using it to contact her outer-space alien colleagues from the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest star-cluster to Earth’s Milky Way, all of this furiously told to her by seemingly-rabid conspiracy theorist Teddy who claims to have done extensive research on ways the clandestine Andromedans have infiltrated our planet resulting in how we’ve come to believe in their brainwashing that has weakened our species, encouraged social animosities, and killed off massive amounts of honeybees, among other transgressions.  Teddy wants to be teleported to the secret Andromedan spaceship, soon to arrive, to meet with their Emperor in hopes of convincing these aliens to leave so that Earth might recover. 

 

 Fuller denies all of this, assumes Teddy’s insane, tries to dialogue with him even as he rejects her offers.  He tortures her with electricity but becomes impressed at her level of tolerance (although we hear her awful screams), decides she’s Andromedan royalty, unlocks the shackles, but when they go upstairs for dinner they’re interrupted by local sheriff’s deputy Casey Boyd (Stavros Halkias) who was a babysitter for young Teddy, molested him, is now trying to make amends, with Michelle hustled back to the basement where Don tells her he wants to go into space with her, then kills himself.  Teddy’s frantic over Don’s death until Michelle tells him the antifreeze in her car trunk is actually an antidote to cure his mother so he rushes to the hospital, puts it in her IV, she dies. ⇒Back home, Teddy’s surprised when Fuller says she is an alien, that Andromedans introduced human life on Earth, then became upset as we deteriorated; she agrees to take Teddy to her Mother Ship, but when they get to her office he’s wearing a vest with a bomb which detonates, killing him.  Then, the big shock!  She’s from Andromeda, goes back to her ship where all agree Earth’s humans are hopeless so they somehow kill them, sparing other animals and plants.⇐  If you want more plot details go to this site and/or watch this video (8:55 [ads at 2:55, 7:35]), Spoilers in both of them.

SO WHAT? Bugonia (whenever you like, you can scroll down a bit to the quote from Amy Nicholson’s review to get a definition of this ancient word) is yet another weird experience from Lanthimos—including 2015’s The Lobster, 2023’s Poor Things (the latter winning Stone an Actress in a Leading Role Oscar, to go with a nomination for one of those from a more-conventional film [for this director], The Favourite [2018]); she also won in this category for La La Land [Damien Chazelle, 2016])—this one adapted from the South Korean film, Save the Green Planet (Jang Joon-hwan, 2003).  Bugonia features some 2026 Oscar nominees also, for Best Picture, Actress in a Leading Role, Adapted Screenplay (Will Tracy), and Original Score (Jerskin Fendrix).  Although I’m still behind on seeing all films that employ this year’s Leading Role Actress I’d have a hard time assuming Stone shouldn’t be in that group, where for me she verges on taking home another Academy statuette, although she’ll face strong competition from Jesse Buckley in Hamnet (Chloé Zhao, 2025).  As for Plemons as an Actor in a Leading Role Oscar nom I’m also behind on a couple of the actual chosen few, but he certainly deserves serious consideration as he—whom we have good reason to believe for most of this story to be a self-absorbed idiot until we learn more—does a marvelous presentation of a man determined to reverse what he understands to be the demise of the human species, just as Stone displays a commanding sense of control of her situation even when hindered in metal cuffs, both of them giving impressive substance to a narrative which is successfully intended to push us in a specific direction until we suddenly find ourselves in the unexpected realm.  

 Given the confined settings of most of the scenes that make up such a narrative, a film like this one depends almost completely on the quality of the lead actors presenting an engaging rendition of the underlying script: Bugonia does all of that in a most compelling manner, giving us solid reason to stay engaged from one situation to the next, confident we know what to expect from Michelle and Teddy (not so much Don, as it’s intentionally difficult to know how much he really understands about what’s going on as events transpire) until we find out we didn’t know as much as we thought we did.  Another thought that comes to me off and on (in a disturbing manner), though, is whether the ending might not be the right choice for our species, given the horrors I see on the nightly news about the dehumanizing direction far too many of us seem to now willingly choose; it would be the most radical development, but we may be instigating such a closure in other ways than this film depicts anyway.

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Bugonia was released to domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on October 24,2025, seems to still be in a few of them, has made $17.7 million ($41.6 globally) so far but is most likely available to you via streaming where you can rent it from Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV for $5,99 (possibly even better for your viewing budget, it’s free to Peacock subscribers).  The CCAL’s in support with 88% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, a 72% Metacritic average score; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences lends their support too with nominations for Best Picture, Actress in a Leading Role, Adapted Screenplay (Will Tracy), and Original Score (Jerskin Fendrix), all of which helps underscore my 4 stars-rating.* Next, a bit farther below, I’ll cite some other opinions that'll support or challenge my response to Bugonia.

 

*I’m in line with the Academy concerning One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025) as I gave it one of my rarely-awarded 5 stars while it got 13 Oscar noms; however I’m not in sync with them regarding Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, 2025), to which I gave only 3½ stars while it garnered 9 Oscar noms (Best Picture, Director, Actress in a Leading Role [Renate Reinsve], Actor in a Supporting Role [Stellan Skarsgård], Actress in a Supporting Role [Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Llilleaas], International Feature, Original Screenplay [Eskil Vogt, Trier], Film Editing), while one of our biggest disconnects is about Nuremberg (James Vanderbilt, 2025), which received one of my equally-rare 4½ stars yet nothing from the Academy.  Another one of my 3½ stars decisions went to Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025) even though this film nabbed a record 16 Oscar contentions (see this site for the full list of Oscar noms) so you can see it’s a tossup if you ever bet on how my stars ratings will match major awards nominations when they’re announced.  I do a bit better at predicting Oscar winners (even when they wouldn’t be my choice for the prize), so we’ll see how I do with that in early March when the awards are presented (sometime before then I’ll make my predictions, but first I must wait for a few of these nominees to come to streaming before I can finalize anything—such as whom I'd dump as a Best Actor nominee to make room for Russell Crowe in Nuremberg).

 Agreements with me include reviews from Amy Nicholson of the Los Angeles Times: “ ‘Bugonia’ is a hilarious movie with no hope for the future of humanity. What optimism there is lies only in the title, an ancient Greek word for the science of transforming dead cows into hives, of turning death into life,”  Michael Andor Brodeur of The Washington Post: “Lanthimos digs into the absurdity (and cruelty) that attends our desire to care for one another — one that can easily curdle into an appetite for destruction. In the flickering basement light of ‘Bugonia,’ humanity comes off like an alien instinct,” and Justin Chang of The New Yorker: “ ‘Bugonia’ is its own skillful exercise in brand maintenance—more an expertly engineered Lanthimos product, perhaps, than a full-bore Lanthimos triumph. But that’s more than enough. Tracy’s dialogue, though absent the staccato non sequiturs of the director’s earlier work, has a bracing nastiness.”  Nevertheless, if I seek a contrarian account I need go no further than G. Allen Johnson of my local San Francisco Chronicle: “Yorgos Lanthimos is a provocateur in the way an 8-year-old is when he pulls the wings off insects — eager to shock, but more fascinated by the act itself than what it reveals. He has a point to make, but can’t get beyond the infantile fantasy of ‘wouldn’t it be cool if …’ ."  However, rather than quibble with people who get paid to write reviews, let’s just move on to the last element of my posting.  As you might know, I try to finish each of these reviews with a Musical Metaphor (if I can think of something even marginally-related to what I’m writing about), but this time I must ask your indulgence regarding how I’ve stretched the concept of “Musical” to include something that has a bit of music to accompany its visuals yet also focuses on spoken narration with my choice being the weekly introduction to the sci-fi series The Outer Limits (ABC TV 1963-'65;. Showtime, Syfy, Channel 7, syndication 1995-2002), picked because of its connection (in my warped mind at least) to what we ultimately encounter in Bugonia, given the tensions that were regularly built up by the antagonists in those old TV episodes.

            

SHORT TAKES

                   

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

              

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 39,056.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):