“The Smashing Machine” gave Dwayne Johnson the chance to prove he’s an actor of consequence.

He passed the test, but there’s a problem. MMA star Mark Kerr’s life lacked the dramatic twists that power the best sports biopics.

Female boxing legend Christy Martin overdelivers on that front.

“Christy” offers so much more to explore, from attempts to broaden boxing’s appeal to domestic violence and, ultimately, Survival 101.

“Christy” doesn’t radically tinker with the biopic mold, but the story’s dramatic heft and an impressive turn by Sydney Sweeney, make it a superior experience to Johnson’s “Machine.”

Sweeney’s Christy Salters stumbles into her future profession. She’s discovered after an amateur boxing match and is soon paired with an unsavory trainer, played to perfection by Ben Foster. That’s Jim Martin, a mediocre boxing mind with a chip on his shoulder as obvious as his combover.

Jim shapes Christy into a credible boxer, but along the way manages to woo her into his bedroom. That’s no small order, given that Christy is a lesbian, albeit one willing to hide that part of her life.

Christy’s rise to the top of her sport won’t be easy, but not just for the usual reasons. Women’s boxing wasn’t a draw in the 1990s. Heck, boxing in general continues to linger in the UFC’s shadow.

Still, her scrappy style, WWE-style pageantry and grit could make her famous. At worst, she’s a novelty act of the first order. Could her duplicitous family stall her success? What if Jim beats them to it?

RELATED: SHOULD CONSERVATIVES SUPPORT SWEENEY’S ‘CHRISTY?’

Sweeney hasn’t tackled a role as challenging as Christy Martin to date, but she never looks overmatched by the material. She’s credible inside the ring and out, unwilling to play up to any Big, Oscar-Bait moments. No scenery chewing, thank you.

Christy’s humble nature makes it hard to pinpoint her character at first, and Sweeney rolls with that assignment. Is she a battered soul overmatched by life? A woman fighting to escape her family’s lack of empathy?

What drives her to train so hard despite the odds?

Sweeney’s performance slowly unlocks the mystery, something that takes time but is worth the effort.

Foster, all coiled rage and insecurity, is perfectly cast as the film’s villain. If anything, the screenplay by director David Michod and spouse Mirrah Foulkes could have shown him in a more sympathetic light, at least on occasion, to seal their curious deal.

Even more frustrating? Christy’s Mom (Merritt Wever), who lacks a single dimension beyond parental disappointment.

Smaller roles spike the story at just the right time. Boxing impresario Don King (Chad L. Coleman) promises to make Christy a star mid-movie, but the film doesn’t sugarcoat his predatory style. Katy O’Brian offers an intriguing contrast as one of Christy’s most notable opponents, a figure who looms larger in the story as Christy’s personal life crumbles.

The boxing sequences aren’t as elaborate or focused as most sports biopics, and that’s likely for the best. The focus here is Christy’s journey, and the real-life drama behind her marriage makes for a consequential third act.

Women’s boxing may never break out as a cultural institution, but that doesn’t detract from what Sweeney and co. achieve with “Christy.”

HiT or Miss: “Christy” is a warts-and-all biopic powered by a sly, understated turn by Sydney Sweeney.

The post Shocking ‘Christy’ Goes the Distance Thanks to Sweeney appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.

Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s French New Wave classic, “Breathless” (1960).

Netflix carries both films as of Nov. 14, and I highly recommend watching Godard’s original first, then viewing Linklater’s take on how the film was made as an act of creative rebellion.

When we meet Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) in Paris of the late 1950s, he’s a restless, arrogant and brilliant writer at Cahiers du Cinema and one of the few artists in the presence of filmmaker legends who has yet to make his first film. When money and opportunity finally arrive, Godard assembles a cast and crew but immediately irritates and challenges his collaborators with his unorthodox filming, writing and even in the way he takes days off.

Few recognize the brilliance of Godard’s anti-Hollywood, deconstructionist approach to making cinema, including his lead, Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch), the American actress who attaches herself to “Breathless” and immediately regrets it.

“Nouvelle Vague” is enjoyable and moves fast, though it never penetrates the inner life, motivations and defiance of Godard.

Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood” (1994) is still the best version of this kind of tale. For cinephiles who know about Godard’s body of work, I’d suggest that the tumultuous making of his “Contempt” (1968) and “King Lear” (1987) would have provided far more colorful and entertainingly chaotic making of period comedies.

The cinematography and art direction are uncanny at recreating the setting, as the clever touches that evoke the film style of the era, compete with “cigarette burns.”

Zoey Deutch’s best acting advice? Be “ready to be lucky.” Listen to our latest @InTheEnvelope episode where she discusses prep for Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” and more: https://t.co/7F3ZRT58Zy pic.twitter.com/SdcFadGole

— Backstage (@Backstage) November 6, 2025

I enjoyed how every character is introduced quickly with a title card and shown facing the camera. It allows for movie history buffs to stargaze. Look, it’s Robert Bresson! Hey, it’s Francois Truffaut!! The actors look uncannily like their real-life counterparts, though only Deutch gets to fully explore her historical figure.

Having read more than a few texts on Godard, he is a tricky figure to pin down, to put it mildly. However, even the fantasy-infused “Hitchcock” (2012), with its divisive lead turn by Sir Anthony Hopkins and a goofy subplot with Ed Gein as a quasi-muse during the making of “Psycho” (1960), managed to probe its subject and not just resort to mimicry.

Marbeck’s take on Godard is always great fun to watch (yes, Godard was full of himself and frustrating, but also a genius and his instincts were correct), but we’re always on the outside looking in. It’s not the requirement of a film about Godard to definitively dissect the cinema icon but I figured Linklater, of all directors, would have been up to the challenge.

Yet, even though it falls short as a character study, “Nouvelle Vague” maintains its hold and entertainment value as a movie about the making of a real gamechanger.

I like Linklater’s film enough to recommend it, but I have one more caveat: the film needed an epilogue or even a closing title card establishing what happened once “Breathless” was released. Linklater’s film ends with the conclusion of the “Breathless” shoot but needed to go on.

The uninitiated may watch this and think Godard simply made this film as a goof on conventional filmmaking, but the truth is more profound: whether you like the man or not, Godard and his films, style, unusual methods to filmmaking and storytelling influenced everyone from Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese, to name a small few.

New Wave Film, as a style and genre, may not be for everyone, but it changed the way many film artists made movies and thought about making them.

Funny enough, “Nouvelle Vague” is itself too conventional to be a true work of New Wave Filmmaking, but you know what movie is? Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” (1995) and the two sequels that followed it!

Linklater didn’t need to recreate the world of “Breathless” to demonstrate how he has already mastered the genre of film Godard created.

Three Stars (out of four)

The post Nouvelle Vague review appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.

Video games have overtaken film and television to become the most popular medium in the world, and one of the most anticipated and long-awaited is Grand Theft Auto 6. This iconic franchise is known for its immersive gameplay, detailed world, sense of agency, and sheer possibilities. However, GTA 6 was once again delayed from May 2026 to November 19, 2026. With over 12 years between it and its predecessor, a famous meme still rings true.

OŚWIĘCIM — Jews on their way to their imminent deaths reportedly overheard a guard at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp, later identified as Maximilian Mulka, rejecting claims that he hated Jewish people, saying, "I don't hate the Jews or anything, just Zionists."

WOODSTOCK, ME — Political commentator Tucker Carlson sparked controversy this week when he welcomed Bigfoot onto his show to discuss how mind-controlling chemtrails are sprayed over the flat earth by the Jews.

LAUSANNE — The International Olympic Committee (IOC) formally revoked the right of transgender athletes to participate in sporting events of the gender they identify with after watching an old episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.