SFFB STREAMING BIOPIC FILM FESTIVAL 2026

JAY KELLY MAY BE MORE METAPHOR THAN SCREEN CHARACTER

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

An esoteric reading of the life of a matinee idol puts actor George Clooney in front of the camera for an encore performance, of sorts.

Director Noah Baumbach creates a self referential film for Clooney about a world famous actor who anticipates that his career may be winding down in Jay Kelly (2025).

Kelly says at least twice, but what seems like over and over again, just in other ways, that portraying yourself on screen would be too difficult, thereby suggesting that the character may just have been created for Clooney through which he can express his personal feelings about his own movie career.

Clooney is playing an actor who is playing in one more performance of a lifetime.

The imaginary life that Clooney channels his emotions through involves two daughters he never had time for, because of a successful film career that kept him occupied, and a distracting entourage, composed of a manager, a bodyguard, a stylist, a publicist and a tech savvy assistant, that goes everywhere with him – that’s just how famous Jay has become.

Daughter Daisy, played by Grace Edwards, is leaving on a summer vacation just when Jay has two weeks off to catch up. And older daughter Jessica, played by Riley Keough, has moved on already with the help of a therapist.

The beginning gets a bit worse for Jay when his dear friend and the director who discovered him, so many movies ago now, dies unexpectedly.

And just one more thing before the film begins in earnest, Jay bumps into his old roommate from the acting studio days at the funeral. Billy Crudup plays Tim who reminisces enough in the parking lot with Jay to get an invite for a drink.

The moment is a bit awkward because Jay is famous from a successful acting career; and, Tim is not.

Again, the script repeats that Clooney may be acting himself when Crudup illustrates what method acting is, for old times sake, implying that Clooney is tapping into his own personal experiences, as a world famous movie actor, to act the part of a famous actor as he bows out of a successful career.

The journey can truly begin, now, with Jay’s manager, Ron, played by Adam Sandler, just continually working Jay’s star power, especially when Jay becomes a real life hero on the train by chasing down a purse snatcher.

Baumbach uses a train trip as a narrative device intended to be that old cliché about psychoanalyses being like getting aboard a train travelling back into the past.

Jay still, after all those years of acting, cannot be honest with the audience and creates two parallel narratives for himself, one that he is going to a tribute to his career in Tuscany, and two, that he is following his daughter, Daisy, around in Europe, during her last summer-long vacation as a student.

Baumbach creates a third narrative about Jay revisiting his past life on the train – after finally having the courage to mingle with the public and meet the people he has been portraying on screen for all those years.

Jay puts the method acting technique to good use and finds important events in his life and career in the other train cabins. This compression of time and space, as Jay begins to confront his past, saves a lot of scene transitions.

At some point, if you weren’t already convinced, Jay has a scene on the train during which Jay, the aging actor, is referring to himself as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, etc, in the hopes of shaking everything up and reminding himself that he is Jay, the fictitious character, and not George Clooney.

Either way, Jay is struggling with the reality that he is too old to continue on as a matinee idol. And in that process, the audience cannot help but feel empathetic toward George Clooney.

A light score is used sparingly, but to great effect.

Nearing the end of the film, Clooney almost jumps out of his character when Jay is asked when the last time he acted in a play.

Jay says not for a long time, but Clooney seems to have wanted to tell everyone about his successful run in theatre starring as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck (2025), for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Actor.

All this hinting about whether or not the character is autobiographical, as Clooney puts the best parts of his screen character in front of the camera, incrementally suspends disbelief that Clooney is Jay who is really Clooney, at least operating the emotive devices inside the character.

And then, just before the closing credits, all the tears start to well up for Clooney as the past comes into the present. Everything the audience has seen, may just have been a recurring dream Clooney has been having lately.

Jay Kelly will be streaming on Netflix on December 5.

RATING SYSTEM 0/.5/1 IN 9 CATEGORIES

Promotion (1) Acting (1) Casting (1) Directing (1) Cinematography (1) Script (1) Narrative (1) Score (1) Overall Vision (1)

TOTAL RATING: 9 OF 9 STARS

RISE OF HEROISM DURING LIFE THREATENING CALIFORNIA WILD FIRE

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The wind driven wildfires along the Camp Creek Road set the backdrop for the deadliest fire in California history.

The wind also drives a director and actor together to tell the story of how 22 elementary school children survived the natural disaster.

Director Paul Greengrass uses close cropped camera angles that incrementally piece together a portrait of school bus driver Kevin McKay.

Matthew McConaughey plays Kevin as a guy trying hard but who ultimately cannot get a break during a day with multiple challenges. Kevin has limited range and, as a result, must continually trade off one challenge for the other challenge until nothing gets done properly.

America Ferrara plays a supporting role as the school teacher, Mary Ludwig, in charge of getting the 22 children to safety.

Kevin is kind of pieced together as a non-starter, eventhough he tries his best and knows how to make tough choices. But the life that has been given Kevin just will not work out right for him.

The character’s backstory creates an unhappy context with his father having died four months earlier, and Kevin having moved back home to take care of his widow mother, only to have to then deal with putting down his cancer riddled dog. Kevin also has a personality clash with his teenage son, who would rather be living somewhere else than going to school.

To make matters worse, the new job driving a school bus doesn’t offer enough work to make everything worthwhile by paying the bills.

In this way, the director begins to explain the background of contemporary Americana in the portrayal of how Americans confront, anywhere any day, a mass casualty event.

The narrative continually intertwines, tighter and tighter, the story of the wildfire with the story of the school bus driver and the children in the school bus.

Greengrass creates an interesting natural aesthetic of the wildfire, with the fierce winds and shrapnel from the burning trees hitting the windshield of the bus as Kevin drives through the fire engulfing either side of the roadway.

The atmosphere and tone of the film become increasingly intense as the fire spreads from a two firetruck grass fire to a town fire requiring an evacuation order.

The use of a handheld camera adds to the tone, with the camera purposefully shaking the scenes and moving about unevenly.

If you think this is chaos, just wait for Kevin’s story, whose simple job driving school kids becomes a monumental challenge for him, having to sort out a lot of unregulated emotions that eventually merge with the story of the fire.

McConaughey builds Kevin into the personification of chaos, who eventually feels so much emotional pressure that he has an internal alarm going off inside him – which he tries to vent by lifting his arm up in the air and signaling for all the troops to rally around him.

McConaughey has everyone believing that his character will fall apart entirely and leave his other-worldly responsibilities to take care of his own family.

Then Kevin meets Mary, but the reversal scenes only lead to greater and greater chaos.

McConaughey then entirely plunges into his character who must take on the burden of being responsible for the lives of the children as the wildfire uncontrollably spreads even closer.

The fire chief’s evacuation notice has caused 15 miles of traffic gridlock. And so, Kevin’s chance to be a hero driving the children to safety has built in obstacles. McConaughey acts through several layers of emotions of a good person with many barriers scrambling to survive in a disaster zone.

Kevin does rise to the occasion, heroically.

The tension in the film is maintained by making the outcome always uncertain, while the camera gradually focuses on the story of how individuals can go through extraordinary transformations to survive tremendous adversity.

RATING SYSTEM 0/.5/1 IN 9 CATEGORIES

Promotion (1) Acting (1) Casting (1) Directing (1) Cinematography (1) Script (1) Narrative (1) Score (1) Overall Vision (1)

TOTAL RATING: 9 OF 9 STARS

PERCEPTIONS CONTROL NARRATIVE

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Everything becomes a dream from the whimsy of childhood to the nightmare of a young adult.

Director Natalia Leite, et al, introduces Amanda Knox as a naïve reckless youth whose carefree acts get her in trouble in The Twister Tale of Amanda Knox (Series 2025).

Grace Van Patten plays Amanda Knox as having innate character flaws that cause her to be targeted by Italian prosecutors, even though the murderer has confessed, after Amanda finds her roommate murdered.

Giuseppe De Domenico plays Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s weeklong boyfriend that gets pulled into the nightmare that takes four years from their lives.

The director continues the narrative by transferring the whimsy into the reckless speculation of the police investigation – and then transformed again into flawed cause and effect analyses based on speculative rationalizations.

Francesco Acquaroli plays prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who surmises one too many times about the murder as his team of investigators make one mistake after another in gathering the evidence.

The prosecutor is shown on screen to allow his dreamy speculations to continue to dominate the investigation despite the gaps in the evidence.

A second crime scene next door with blood splatters does not detract from the more sensational results involving the beautiful American.

Amanda mistakenly directs the investigation toward her by making a series of misstatements that are easily disproven, culminating in a written confession that is coerced.

In Episode 2, Leite creates confusion in the scenes leading up to Amanda’s confession, by using a score that sounds like the character’s internal processes and also by merging voices of the police officers over top of each other.

Bits and pieces of a montage flash forward in the background, as if Amanda is deconstructing inside, just as the pressure on her to tell the police what they wanted to hear becomes unbearable.

Episodes are divided into deconstructed parts: one part the police investigation, one part the criminal proceedings, and one part flash backs to the time around the crime and the people that might be involved. Another part is used more sparingly, apparently according to movie magic, as Amanda returns to Italy in real time to face her accuser.

This 8 episode biographical series spins around the acting performance of Grace Van Patten who creates Amanda Knox during many different phases as Amanda creates and recreates herself while time passes, from the naïve love interest to the reckless witness to the wrongfully accused.

Van Patten cleverly creates the emotions that fill the scenes of this constantly changing narrative.

The camera really wants to put together the characters and motivations that created the wrongful conviction and ruined the young lives of the lovers, Amanda and Raffael.

Hair found in the room is determined to belong to a black person. And with very few black people in the small Italian town, Amanda mistakenly accuses the owner of a bar where she works.

Leite keeps everything in context, even the reason for the misstatements, often made with mixed motives, such as emotional diversion to release the pressure.

Amanda looks like a liar to the camera when she tells the police that she does not know any black men, but then she goes to work afterwards, and the bar manager, Patrick, is a black man.

Patrick is proven to be totally innocent. And Amanda is convicted of defamation for the statement that she eventually made, accusing Patrick of the murder.

The sound crew creates the tension of the violent murder that the camera never does show, by creating emotive responses with a speeding moped or the clashing metal of a chained linked basketball net.

Further tension is created as the director wants everyone to feel the confusion that Amanda felt by keeping a lot of the dialogue in Italian. Amanda has only been muddling through her days as a foreign student still learning Italian and still speaking partly in English when the police interview her and take her confession in Italian.

And the camera returns to the crime scene so many times in the first two episodes that the area must have been contaminated by now, but the small Italian town prosecutors continue to collect evidence, nonetheless.

What always seems remarkable through the 8 episodes is that the prosecutor’s office vehemently believe in the correctness of the investigation results, even as they discuss their own mistakes during team meetings.

Every episode is a bit different, but the overall theme of internal and external chaos manifests in different forms through the series.

The camera continually returns to the performance by Van Patten, who has done her research and decided on the character, and then maintains continuity of the character as the script pushes the camera into a few other layers.

The script is based on the autobiography written by Amanda Knox. And so, the perspective is rather subjective, but a compelling watch, nonetheless.

This Hulu production is streaming on Disney+ in Canada.

RATING SYSTEM 0/.5/1 IN 9 CATEGORIES

Promotion (1) Acting (1) Casting (1) Directing (1) Cinematography (1) Script (1) Narrative (1) Score (1) Overall Vision (1)

TOTAL RATING: 9 OF 9 STARS

SIBLINGS NOT READY FOR FORTUNE

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The story of Dubliners gets explained through the telling of a family run brewing company after the founder passes away and the heirs transform their lives according to the lot given to them.

Directors Tom Shankland and Mounia Akl create scenes filled with historical details, the personalities behind the world famous family brand and a lot of action in House of Guinness (Series 2025).

This 8 part series streaming on Netflix stars Anthony Boyle as Arthur Guinness, Louis Partridge as Edward Guinness, Emily Fairn as Anne Plunket (sister), and Fionn O’Shea as Benjamin Guinness.

The siblings begrudgingly accept their interests from their father’s estate, the Last Will and Testament having displeased each of them, but then Arthur, Edward, Anne and Benjamin adjust and eventually work with each other to secure the family legacy.

An ensemble cast tells a complicated story of how each sibling, and the characters around them, affects the future of the House of Guinness in their own way. The narrative becomes more and more compelling as the distinct personalities begin to appreciate the responsibility of being part of the Guinness family.

The evidence of the Irish famine existing near Guinness estate properties stirs the conscience of the new operating minds of the company. The new generation of Guinness initially become sensitized to the plight of the population through their sister, Anne, and early love interests who visit them at their various residences.

Anne does not receive and inheritance, but she becomes included, nonetheless, to further the family’s philanthropic efforts in improving the lives of Dubliners, while gaining political power and increasing fortunes for the family.

James Norton plays the foreman of the brewery, Sean Rafferty. Rafferty has a complicated part in the brewing empire as foreman of the large brewery. When needed, Rafferty is an enforcer in the community, and his role only gets more complicated as the series expands into the individual lives of the characters.

Each distinct character develops sufficiently through the episodes to reveal the complicated motivations behind certain actions.

Edward Guinness takes control of the family business and embarks on an expansion plan that also raises the profile of the family within the community. Arthur is not really interested in the day to day business operations other than the wealth it brings him as an equal shareholder. Arthur still participates in securing the Guinness legacy by taking a seat in the House of Lords and also running for a political seat.

Benjamin is excluded because of his drunkenness and questionable unproductive lifestyle choices. After Benjamin spends one or two episodes having to proclaim to others that he has not inherited any part of his father’s immense fortune, he is received back into the family as long as he marries honourably – for which he receives an annual income.

The story board is more complicated than character development. The Fenians lead the rebellion for Irish independence from the British, while Guinness has prospered from the Empire.

Niamh McCormack plays Fenian matriarch, Ellen Cochrane, with whom Edward enters into a sort of non-aggression pact, in part to help Arthur get elected in the politically divided city, and in part to stop the attacks on company capital assets, such as the brewery’s cooperage.

Michael McElhatton plays the estate’s trusted butler, John Potter. Potter is in the know of too much, but he also knows his place and only gives an opinion when asked for one. And then the opinion is ignored, anyway.

The series is filmed beautifully, as the Irish are prone to creating beautiful things by depicting the sweet and the bitter of humanity. Amongst all the Dublin chaos and all the deconstructed personalities the future is never certain – and perhaps even more uncertain than when the first episode began.

A contemporary music score frequently drives over scenes depicting a time over a century old, which is a fitting sound aesthetic with the more liberal private thoughts conflicting with conservative public values. These lifestyle choices in conflict with the status quo may be no different than today, according to the music that splits time, but the Guinness siblings endure because of their wealth, reputation, and connections.

House of Guinness is streaming on Netflix.

RATING SYSTEM 0/.5/1 IN 9 CATEGORIES

Promotion (1) Acting (1) Casting (1) Directing (1) Cinematography (1) Script (1) Narrative (1) Score (1) Overall Vision (.5)

TOTAL RATING: 8.5 OF 9 STARS

Post

DE NIRO FLOURISHES IN FRONT OF CREATIVE CAMERA

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Frank Costello and Vito Genovese grew up together and learned to become mobsters together on the streets of New York City.

But there came a time in the Luciano crime family when the two Italian Americans challenged each other’s leadership, Vito Genovese not being content with what his share had become.

Director Barry Levinson creates a stylized portrait of that period of tremendous uncertainty in the life of the American mobsters.

Levinson does not turn the narrative into a retrospective, and instead, focusses the camera on the mobs real-life reversal scenes. The director then slices in the backstory with the use of dramatized black and white photos, original network reels playing on the TV and a lot of nostalgia for New York City.

Robert De Niro performs a wraparound as Frank Costello, transitioning scenes with a voiceover and the occasional scenes talking directly into the camera.

De Niro transitions from an elderly Costello to a younger but still older mobster and also, if you happened to miss the marketing campaign, the doppelganger protagonist, Vito Genovese.

The Vito character sketch hides the De Niro actor, a bit more than the Frank character, with tinted eyeglasses and a stylized hat. The hair and make-up department do the rest of the work by personalizing the different characters’ noses and jawlines.

De Niro though does most of the character development work by creating two distinct characters. Frank, having more of the mob under his control, prevails over a lot of the street chaos with a calmer demeanor, and a more rational approach to the situation, even after barely surviving an assassination attempt.

Vito is quirkier, showing more of the irrational temperamental personality and impulsiveness more often shown by gangsters who are criminals through and through.

Levinson distinguishes the two worlds, that each character has created for himself independent of the other, by casting talented supporting characters for each leading character.

Debra Messing as Bobbie Costello develops the character with that born and raised New York City accent, who is not so dreamy eyed over her marriage partner but definitely loyal, determined and in love.

Kathrine Narducci is more of an Italian-American New Yorker as Anna Genovese, whose classic spirit comes out as the mutually convenient relationship begins to fall apart, giving her every right to get upset.

Levinson moves the 2 hr 3 m runtime with this character development. The camera follows the two mobsters but then pieces together more of their characters by showing the personalities behind the people closest to them.

The brutalized killings of the gangster genre, popularized by the director Martin Scorsese mob films, are noticeably absent. The scenes instead are compelled forward by the talent in front of the camera and an interesting enough story that is not complicated but maintains a consistent level of interest nevertheless.

Composer David Fleming creates a score that matches many scenes, frequently adding a tension to the already intense dialogue. The score throughout the film replaces the sound of guns exchanging fire and long knives clashing.

A creative flourishing occurs behind the camera as well with Levinson using a variety of camera angles and inventive scene framing that incrementally builds tone and atmosphere as the storyboards begin to pile up.

Levinson keeps the camera out of the backstory where a lot of the true crime activity of these biographical characters occurs – and instead the director creates an intensity by juxtaposing the competing worlds of the characters as Vito strategizes for absolute control of the New York City streets.

The props are noticeably from this particular era of gangsters. And the classic antique cars being driven in the streets during transition scenes establishes a stimulating aesthetic.

What kind of becomes left behind in the genre are the complicated three dimensional narratives that compels a gangster film back and forth from the crime world into the personal lives of the individuals, and then between competing crime families, until all hell breaks loose in gunfire and madness.

Levinson, instead of following the tried and true template, sets up a uniquely personal style within the gangster genre right next to, but apart from, a Scorsese mob film or a Francis Ford Coppola mafia epic.

RATING SYSTEM 0/.5/1 IN 9 CATEGORIES

Promotion (1) Acting (1) Casting (1) Directing (1) Cinematography (1) Script (1) Narrative (1) Score (1) Overall Vision (1)

TOTAL RATING: 9 OF 9 STARS

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