Late Fame

Poetry in Commotion

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call 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 ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

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.

1/5/2026—In reference to this blog’s current limitations as noted in the red announcement just above, this week’s been especially busy for me so I’ve got to keep the contents of this posting even shorter than usual which is a shame because Late Fame is quite a strong film with another outstanding performance from Willem Dafoe in an unusual topic, so I encourage you to delve into the links I’ve provided (with Spoilers I admit) to get a much fuller understanding of what transpires here.

          Late Fame (Kent Jones)   Not Rated    97 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.)

 

 The basic plot here is Ed Saxberger (Dafoe) has lived in NYC for 50 years, in the 1970s he was among the local bohemian poets, published one book of his work—Way Past Go—then faded from that scene, now works a routine job sorting mail at a Lower Manhattan post office.  Suddenly, he’s rediscovered by a group of wannabe art influencers who invite him into their circle, show him great respect, want to revive his career which both fascinates and frightens him; for extensive plot details you can go to this site.  Late Fame opened in a limited number of domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on August 7, 2026, has grossed a mere $560 thousand ($593 thousand worldwide)—maybe it’s a bit too esoteric for a wider audience—is now available through streaming where you can rent it for just $5.99 from Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.  The CCAL is enthused about this film as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 94%, the normally-lower Metacritic average score is 77% (one of their best results for something they and I have reviewed in quite awhile, I'll gladly say).

 

 Among its admirers is Owen Gleiberman of Variety (MC 90): “One of the common observations about filmmakers like Jean Renoir, Robert Altman, and Jonathan Demme is that they see the humanity of everyone onscreen. That’s abundantly true of Kent Jones […] What’s driving that camera, in a word, is curiosity.”  Of course, I always try to find you a dissenting opinion to help in making your watching decision, but this time such rejection was hard to come by so even as I cite Anna Smith of TimeOut (MC 60) she still has supportive comments: “Much like its hero, Late Fame drifts towards a conclusion rather than following a clear sense of purpose, but it does so with grace. Like the poetry, it’s sure to find an appreciative audience.”  While you’re deciding your interest, here’s my brief (in keeping with the reality of this review) Musical Metaphor, the Simon & Garfunkel "Bookends Theme" (1968 Bookends album) with the thought that, unlike today, Ed’s much-earlier life was “A time of innocence / A time of confidences.”  Now, neither of those seem real.

 (In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence.

        

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 (not our fault).

            

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 81,566.   (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Love of Your Life

After Tragedy Other Difficulties Remain

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call 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 ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

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.

                           Love of Your Life (Rachel Morrison)

                                          rated R    109 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.)

  Love of Your Life is a romantic drama, emphasis on that phrase’s first word in its early going followed by a shift to the second word as the plot unfolds.  We follow the life of current/then former Boston ER nurse Maya (Margaret Qualley) over 11 years as she happens upon Charlie (Gabriel Basso) with whom she has an instant connection (he also easily becomes a “best bud” with Jason [Patrick Schwarzenegger], Maya’s platonic friend from their college years) so they soon marry where Maya finds great comfort with her mother-in-law, Ruth (Catherine Keener).  Yet, in case you’d think all of this idyllic love will just continue for the near-2 hour-running time you’re suddenly slapped back to reality when Charlie contracts COVID-19 and dies (not truly a Spoiler because it comes so relatively early in this narrative).  Heartbroken Maya shuts herself from everything and everyone—including Ruth—as much as possible as her grief is enormously deep.  Three years later we find her in Lisbon, Portugal (a place she and Charlie often talked of visiting) where she supports herself with a telehealth job, attempts to drown her ongoing sorrows with lots of drinking and one-night stands until she once again happens upon a fulfilling encounter with Felix (Aaron Pierre), a divorcé from London.  They fall into a passionate romance with a seaside trip, then on to London for both of them.  At a restaurant one night, though, Felix happens upon them, wants to fully catch up with Maya, but she acts as if they’re just casual acquaintances which angers him greatly (later we learn she didn’t want to reveal a lot of her past to Felix which gives us reason to wonder what she truly hoped to share in a relationship with him).  There’s quite a bit more to Maya’s story; however, my arbitrary choice of space for these postings leads me to refer you to this site to find more (lots of useful details, Spoilers as well).  You might be hesitant to see it if you’ve had any bad COVID experience (I lost a long-time friend) or you might not support some of Maya’s decisions, but if you can get past such hindrances I think you’d find a lot to appreciate about all these human depictions.

 Love of Your Life was released to “select theaters” on October 7, 2026 (which means no report on box-office revenues) but is more easily found via streaming where it’s free on Amazon Prime Video (if you’re a subscriber or just want to take advantage of their 30-day no-charge policy, after which you could remain for $8.99 monthly),  I found this to be an engaging story as did the overall CCAL where Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 81% while the Metacritic average score is lower (as usual) at 62%.  Among those who join me in recommending is my local guy in the San Francisco Bay Area, Randy Myers (3 of 4 stars), in The San Jose Mercury News: (scroll down to his third review here) “Romantic dramas that focus intricately and sensitively with weighty matters such as moving on from a tragic event don’t get produced as often as they once did. […] filmmaker Rachel Morrison successfully fills that void with a soulful character study […] Qualley and screenwriter Julia Cox (‘Nyad’) make Maya a brittle, fully realized character with brains and issues. […] this film succeeds because of Qualley’s mercurial and tone-rich performance, the gorgeous cinematography from Todd Banhazl and a nuanced protagonist confronting both exterior and interior hardships.”

 

 Of course, those critic-compilation totals include negative responses as with Jourdain Searles (MC 40) of The Hollywood Reporter:  “Maya insists that Charlie was the special one, the one who made life easy and fun. But she seems to float through the world as a beautiful damsel who tries to disappear but can’t seem to avoid being the center of attention. […] Maya’s fear of commitment mirrors the film’s fear of showing us anything truly ugly or grappling with the idea that our heroine is one of many, many people who lost someone during a society-shattering number of years.”  Obviously, I'm more with the supporters (even as the story’s resolution evokes ambiguity), but I’ll leave the watching choice to you.  My choice for a closing Musical Metaphor focuses on Maya’s situation of somehow remaining connected to Charlie so I give you Bob Dylan’s early tune "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" (dates from 1963; found on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II [1971]) where she’d also say “But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty / That I remember in my true love’s eyes” (even as you must change gender references in the song from female to male).

 (In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence.

       

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 (not our fault).

           

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 87,411.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Coyote vs. Acme

Corporate Malfeasance in a Looney Tunes World

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call 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 ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

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.

  Coyote vs. Acme (Dave Green)  rated PG  103 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.)

 Coyote vs. Acme is somewhat adapted from Ian Frazier’s New Yorker parody of the same name (1990) which Warner Bros. Entertainment brought to an adaptation set to debut in summer of 2023, then they decided to go with Barbie (Greta Gerwig) instead, planning to use the roughly $70 million Coyote … production expenses as a tax write-off, but when word got around about that there was a lot of negative outcry so eventually WB Discovery (before they were recently bought by Skydance Paramount) sold the movie to Ketchup Entertainment for $50 million in 2025, guaranteeing nothing but a financial loss for the original project.  Fortunately, for us fans of this delightful enterprise we know from the start we’re in for parody laughs as the graphic noting this is a product from Warner Bros. Discovery is followed by another graphic noting that company is “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Acme Corporation.”  A bit later we find Coyote’s attorney is from the firm of Avery, Jones & Maltese, slyly referencing noted WB cartoonists masters Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Michael Maltese.  Essentially, this intentionally-goofy story involves how long-frustrated (and dead for decades if he weren’t a cartoon character) Wile E. Coyote has bought innumerable devices from Acme in an attempt to make a meal of the clever, fabulously-fast Road Runner, only for all of those gadgets to backfire leading this canine to smash into walls, drop great distances to brutal landings.  

 

 Tired of all this failure, Coyote seeks out lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), intending to sue Acme for their consistently ineffective products, only to find Avery’s more-or-less an ambulance chaser whose career is based on small-amount settlements with big companies eager to avoid the nuisance of a trial they’d probably win anyway, with much more commanding lawyers—such as Acme’s Buddy Crane (John Cena)—than way-under-the-radar Avery.  I’ll leave the rest of the plot details for your perusal at this site along with assuring you that along with the comedy there’s plenty of Looney Tunes cartoon violence (where no one actually gets hurt) and appearances by WB stars such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, the Tasmanian Devil, Granny, Tweety, and Sylvester (probably others who escape me now), all providing some effective nostalgia.

 Coyote vs. Acme opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on August 28, 2026, still playing in some venues, so far has grossed $60 million ($100.9 million worldwide), most likely most easily available through streaming where it rents for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.  Compared to several other recent releases I’ve blogged about the CCAL is quite enthusiastic for this movie with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a whopping 96% (no phony numbers either, as this is based on 299 responses before I could even get to it), while the usually-more-reserved Metacritic average score is 77% (based on just 46 reviews, though).  Oft-cited-here evaluator Odie Henderson of The Boston Globe is a top supporter (MC 100): “And yet, here I am reviewing a movie that, like its hero, Wile E. Coyote, lives to fight another day despite being temporarily defeated by the deficient actions of a major corporation. The best part of all is that ‘Coyote vs, Acme’ is a superb piece of filmmaking, a loving tribute to the most hapless of all Looney Tunes characters and the many fans who love him. […] It’s one of the year’s best movies, and deserves to shame Warner Bros. by raking in boffo box office numbers. For once, an Acme product would work as intended.”  But, you can’t please all of the people all of time as evidenced by the Associated Press’ Mark Kennedy who was not amused (MC 25): “But not too long into this mess, you’ll start to sympathize with Warner Bros. They aren’t a ruthless corporation censoring a C-suite satire: They were protecting us from a poorly executed movie that misuses our cartoon favorites. […] What’s up, doc? No, really, we need a script doc. […] This is a film only personal injury attorneys could love.”  Well, maybe some others of us also, including my very positive recommendation.  Yet, if you need a refresher on the Wile E. Coyote-Road Runner cartoons (began in 1949 with “Fast and Furry-ous”) here’s a short compilation (24:00) of some of their antics (with longer and shorter options around that YouTube site); after looking at that you can conclude with my usual Musical Metaphor which is ultra-relevant this week, I wish I can use it every time because, literally, it says "That's All Folks".

 (In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence.

        

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 (not our fault).

              

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 87,411.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):