Dugan’s career has many highlights, including a much-loved acting stint as Captain Freedom on the TV drama Hill Street Blues. He has been even more successful in the director’s chair, with credits garnering more than $1 billion total. His directorial works include Problem Child (1990), Happy Gilmore (1996), Big Daddy (1999) and Grown Ups 1 and 2 (2010, 2013). For Love, Weddings and Other Disasters he tapped into his talent, not only writing, directing and producing, but playing the key supporting role of Eddie Stone.

MacLeod himself is heavily featured as he provides insight on the music business and why he works so hard to create free music. After a while into the film, you get a good inkling of the kind of person he is: a selfless workaholic who is plagued with bouts of anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome. It’s funny to see how much of an impact he’s had in the world unintentionally and even when he thinks about it, he doesn’t seem fazed. He’s so strangely endearing that even Hollywood would have trouble creating a character like him.

On the Rocks is reminiscent of her 2003 directorial smash, Lost in Translation. That film told the story of an aging movie star – played by Bill Murray – facing a midlife crisis. For On the Rocks, Murray is back, but this time as a more-self-assured older man who volunteers to help his daughter, Laura (Rashida Jones), through a marital crisis. Murray plays Felix, a charming senior who still has a way with the ladies. We learn from Laura that he wasn’t a great dad.

Certainly, fans of the Hitchcock film should enjoy this 21^st century take on the tale, which is as dark and intriguing today as it was in 1938. The action centers on the relationship between a young, naive woman (Lily James) who is swept off her feet by Maxim de Winter, a charismatic widower with a massive English estate called Manderley. The two impetuously marry, but life is not as the young Mrs. de Winter had dreamed.

Love and Monsters may not become a classic, but it’s a truly great time. It’s scary enough to work as a Halloween film, romantic and funny enough to transcend the horror genre, and written with both an edge and wit. Writers Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson deserve significant credit because – while genre-crossing films are sought after – they don’t always work. But Love and Monsters succeeds exceptionally well.

But his true pleasure is in showing us the old masters, his face lighting up with a child’s excitement.  We peer closely along with Uzzle as he shows us how to look at a painting as if it were a photograph, finding new meaning in the color black or the chiaroscuro effect of dark and light on a subject’s face.  As for faces, he sees each one as a new frontier, “as deep a frontier as you’re capable of exploring.”

Although Mulan is thematically interested in big ideas, including character and equality, it is also a fine fantasy film filled with beautifully crafted martial arts sequences. The director’s  previous directorial efforts – including the wonderful 2002 drama Whale Rider – demonstrate her ability to build empathy for characters, but they don’t hint at the level of skill with which she tackles action. Some of the battle sequences in Mulan are reminiscent of pure martial arts movies.

The shortsightedness of the filmmakers is on display in an unsettling way; they didn’t take into account two fundamental aspects of acting that make all the difference: eyes and physicality. Scorsese expressed concerns about how the de-aging affected the eyes of the performers earlier this year on A24’s “A Bigger Canvas” podcast, saying, “Certain shots need more work on the eyes.” But an even bigger problem is the fact that the actors, now in their mid-70s or older, don’t have the physicality of their younger selves.

The ending notwithstanding, there are times when the movie soars: The opening sequence that accompanies the credits is a breathtaking collage that plunges you completely into the headspace and milieu a different totally time. Brad Pitt gives the coolest performance of his career, and I mean “coolest” in the purest possible sense: cooler than Brando at his coolest, cooler than Steve McQueen (who appears as a character in the film long enough to give a monologue before disappearing completely). Pitt’s rapport with his dog is one of the more touching elements. 

The movie chronicles the shuttering up of New York City’s most beloved record store, Other Music, which took exquisite pride in championing the kind of musicians whose work you wouldn’t find at Tower Records across the street. The owners and employees acted as indie curators, relishing every opportunity to geek out over thousands of obscure musicians, personally selecting albums based on their customers’ tastes and inclinations.