Tag: Macall Polay

Mountainhead (2025) | REVIEW

Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, and Jason Schwartzman in MOUNTAINHEAD — PHOTO: HBO / Macall Polay.

Directed by Jesse Armstrong — Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong.

How do you follow up the wild success of audience and critic-favorite Succession, which earned its creator, Jesse Armstrong, four Emmys (one for each season) for writing? Jesse Armstrong opted for an HBO film, Mountainhead, that, although not explicitly connected to the universe of Succession, feels somewhat related to the corporate, capitalist, and inheritance satire that put him on the map globally. However, though it occasionally does capture the right feeling of that show, Mountainhead doesn’t quite manage to say anything new.

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A Complete Unknown (2024) | REVIEW

Edward Norton and Timothée Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Photo by Macall Polay, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

Directed by James Mangold (LOGAN; Ford v Ferrari) — Screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks.

Set in the early-to-mid 1960s, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown follows a young musician named Bob Dylan (played by Timothée Chalamet) who, in a New Jersey hospital, meets his music idol, Woody Guthrie (played by Scoot McNairy), who is suffering from Huntington’s disease. Dylan impresses Woody and fellow musician Pete Seeger (played by Edward Norton) with a song dedicated to Guthrie, and, as a result, Seeger invites Dylan to stay in his home. As the two become fast friends, Seeger starts to introduce Dylan to the folk music scene, and soon, he becomes the target of the industry. Although Dylan makes a name for himself with folk music and protest songs, he gradually starts to struggle with being considered solely as a folk musician.

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REVIEW: tick, tick… BOOM! (2021)

Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson in Netflix’s tick, tick… BOOM! — Photo: Macall Polay / Netflix.

Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda — Screenplay by Steven Levenson.

Hamilton-creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick… BOOM! is based on the Jonathan Larson musical of the same name and it tells the story of Jonathan Larson’s time as an aspiring composer and playwright in New York City in the early 1990s. Larson (played by Andrew Garfield) is about to turn thirty years old, and he is worried that he is about to miss his moment. While he is juggling paying his bills, working on his relationship with his girlfriend, Susan (played by Alexandra Shipp), and working as a waiter in a SoHo diner, he is also trying to complete his musical Superbia, which he has been working on for eight years, before it is to be presented a couple of days prior to his birthday. But Larson finds it difficult to find time for everyone in his life as he can constantly sense that time is ticking away inside his head.

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