Presence (Steven Soderbergh, 2025). A family moves into a big house, looking for a new start in response to the struggles of their teenaged daughter (Callina Liang), depressed and grieving over the shocking death of her friend. There are other tensions in the home, particularly because of some business malfeasance on the part of the mother (Lucy Liu). The real problem, though, is that the new domicile is haunted. Presence is shot entirely from the perspective of the ghost and it roams the halls and eavesdrops on conversations. The the film is sort of a first-person spooker. The arty conceit director Steven Soderbergh brings to the film loses its curiosity factor almost immediately. Worse, the spectral point-of-view shots don’t rescue the film from David Koepp’s subpar script, marked by weak characterizations and a trite storyline. The last fifteen minutes or so feel especially phony in their strained twists. Of the performances, only Chris Sullivan, playing a wearied father, occasionally finds a real person in his role. Maybe it’s because his flares of exasperation are easy to relate to when watching this misfire.

Fast Company (David Cronenberg, 1979). This is so obviously a pure paycheck picture for David Cronenberg, released early enough in his career that he hadn’t yet fully established himself as a filmmaker worthy of a devoted following. Even so, there’s just enough evidence of his innate talent as a clear, inventive visual storyteller to make Fast Company a mildly enjoyable B movie. The plot couldn’t be more familiar. In the sport of drag racing, a hot shot young driver (Nicholas Campbell) is enmeshed in a volatile relationship with the team’s old hand (William Smith), sometimes accepting the mentoring and sometimes grousing that he’s not getting enough chances to establish himself. There’s a bullying team boss (John Saxon) and various female characters who are basically interchangeable prizes for the manly men. Cronenberg is barely interested in the drama, and the performances are wooden up and down the cast. Still, there’s a boisterous energy to many of the scenes, making the film come across as far more of a run-and-gun goof than anything else in Cronenberg’s filmography. Some of Cronenberg’s most valuable longstanding collaborations begin here, most notably with cinematographer Mark Irwin, who shoots the action with striking acuity.

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Robert Altman, 1982). Robert Altman directed the inaugural Broadway production of Ed Graczyk’s play Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, fielding a cast that mixed members of his usual troupe with the notable wild card of Cher in her first proper dramatic role. That same year, Altman spun out a film version with all the same performers and clearly a fair amount of the basic staging carried over, too. There are times when the acting feels like it’s been transferred straight over without the necessary calibrations for the screen. Set in a small-town Texas drugstore in the middle of the nineteen-seventies, the film’s story mostly locks in with coworkers Mona (Sandy Dennis) and Sissy (Cher). Mona is mousy and odd, and Sissy is brassy. They’ve both been stuck in their backwater town since high school, and there’s plenty of reminiscing as they’re visited by some of their old cohorts in a James Dean fan club that sprung up when the actor filmed Giant just down the dusty road. The most notable reunion attendee is Joanne (Karen Black). She’s undergone a significant enough transformation that her old friends don’t recognize her at first. Cher and Black give the strongest and most consistent performances in the film, tapping into currents of complex emotions with more subtlety. The plot has maybe has a couple big revelations too many, and the key twist involving the paternity of Mona’s son is obvious well before the movie gets around to spilling its secret. It’s still a work that holds some worldly wisdom, and Altman takes care to bring its most honest and moving elements to the forefront.