Vicky Kaushal is at the top of his game with back-to-back hits under his belt. He is now back with his new film, Chhaava, directed by Laxman Utekar.

The film has been released and has started off with positive word of mouth. Those who watched it in Mumbai are praising it highly, especially Vicky Kaushal’s

performance.

With strong word of mouth and impressive advance bookings, the film is expected to open solidly at the box office. Rashmika Mandanna plays the female lead, and her performance is also being widely appreciated.

Once again, she has delivered a hit with Chhaava. Now that the film is out for the public, it remains to be seen how the general audience will receive it.

Upstairs at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Sean Baker is talking shop with veteran projectionist Ivan Rothberg as he’s threading the fifth reel of “Anora,” Baker’s Oscar-nominated crowd-pleaser that won top honors from the directors and producers guilds over the weekend.

Looking out the booth’s window onto the sold-out theater’s screen, we see that Igor (Yura Borisov) has just handed a red scarf to Ani (Mikey Madison) to buffer the frigid night air, so we have some time before Ani’s journey ends. We head to a tiny office around the corner where Baker plops down next to his wife and producing partner, Samantha Quan, and fellow producer Alex Coco. We’re surrounded by shelves stacked with boxes of Red Vines, Kit Kats and sparkling water. Quan grabs a pack of Cheez-Its. You take sustenance where you find it.

It’s been more than 48 hours since “Anora” swept top prizes at the Directors Guild of America and Producers Guild of America awards, and they still can’t believe it happened.

“When we got to the producers, I was just shut down for the night,” Baker says, noting the stress that came with winning the DGA and having to make a speech he wasn’t at all prepared to deliver. He won the DGA prize at 9 p.m., posed for pictures and then hopped in a car for the mile-long trip from Beverly Hills to Century City for the final moments of the PGA ceremony. “It was extremely weird to hear them call out ‘Anora.’”

“I thought we were going to blank the whole weekend,” producer Coco says. Referring to the Critics Choice Awards held Friday, he adds, “I figured it we didn’t win there, that’s our obituary.”

“I didn’t think of it that way,” Baker says, “because I don’t really know the game that well. People are telling me now that we’re actually in the conversation again because of these wins. See, I didn’t know these wins would get us back into the conversation.”

But then Baker, two weeks shy of his 54th birthday, never expected to be in the awards conversation in the first place. Adept at making movies illuminating the underrepresented, Baker broke through in 2015 with “Tangerine,” the micro-budgeted tale of two trans sex workers working at the seedy intersection of Santa Monica and Highland in Hollywood. Baker famously shot the movie on iPhone 5s.

He followed that two years later with “The Florida Project,” another look at people on the margins, in this case, the residents of a rundown motel in the shadow of Disney World. Willem Dafoe, playing the motel’s beleaguered manager, earned the movie’s only Oscar nomination.

“I thought, ‘OK, I don’t think I’m going to get any more higher-brow than ‘The Florida Project,’” Baker says. “Like, that’s the top of my brow there. So if they’re not into that, if I’m scaring people off with that, then I’m not meant for this world.”

Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn in the movie “Anora.”

(Neon)

Baker followed “The Florida Project” with “Red Rocket,” again mixing hilarity, honesty and heartbreak in its story of a middle-aged porn star fleeing Los Angeles for his small Texas hometown. And then came “Anora,” the fractured fairy tale about a Brooklyn sex worker’s heady and, ultimately, devastating relationship with the son of a Russian oligarch.

“There was not one moment when we were making ‘Anora’ that I was like, ‘I’m doing this for a mainstream audience,’” Baker says. “To tell you the truth, it was very like, ‘I’m making this for the people who like my crazy stuff. I’m making this for the people who like “Red Rocket.” I’m going to be giving it to them.’”

“Except for when we were leaving for Cannes and you said, ‘This is going to be a nice relaxing trip,’” Quan reminds him, teasing. “You thought it was too commercial, so it wasn’t going to win anything.”

“I also thought it was too funny,” Baker replies. “Historically, comedies haven’t won too many awards there.”

“Anora” ended up taking the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. And Baker finds himself nominated for four Oscars, as a producer, director, writer and editor.

Which raises the question: Why, out of all of Baker’s films, is “Anora” the one that’s connecting with moviegoers and awards voters?

Baker shrugs his shoulders. “It’s very difficult to say. Maybe it’ll take a few years where you can look back at an era and have perspective on what was going on, culturally and politically.”

Coco thinks people are responding to the title character. Quan offers that it might be the “strange family” that forms between the film’s characters, all of whom are recognizable and human.

“And they’re all of a similar class,” Coco says, “all beholden to this family that has all the money. They’re trying to survive that.”

When Baker won the Palme d’Or, he shared a stage with George Lucas, one of his many heroes whom he has met the past few months, a list that includes Pedro Almodóvar and Christopher Nolan, the latter who presented him with the DGA award.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Baker says, noting how much he appreciates Nolan’s movies and work in film preservation. “So when I went up there, I was thinking I was definitely going to try to make him happy and talk about theatrical windows and shooting on film.” We all laugh. He turns to Quan. “Was he smiling back there?” She assures him he was.

Baker, left, speaks with fans after the screening.

(Kay Qiao / American Cinematheque at Aero Theatre)

Baker met another one of his idols a few days ago when he picked up the Los Angeles Film Critics’ Assn.‘s best picture award on the night that the group honored John Carpenter’s career. He didn’t know Carpenter would be there and Quan says her husband was “freaking out.”

“I’m never fully informing myself, so I didn’t know he was getting the career honor that night,” Baker says. “He’s such a hero. I still have the ‘Escape From New York’ poster on my wall. I had ‘Assault on Precinct 13’ above my bed in seventh and eighth grade. And, of course, ‘The Thing’ means so much to me.”

When the evening ended, Baker approached Carpenter and asked for a photo. The two posed together, giddily making metal signs with their fingers. If it’s not Baker’s most cherished moment from the past few months, it’s high on the list.

When I suggest that “Anora’s” ending, a perfect, ambiguous moment of release for its title character, might be another reason for its appeal, Baker circles back to Carpenter, saying he wished he had mentioned that aspect of the genre master’s filmmaking. Carpenter had a way with ambiguous endings.

“He taught me that,” Baker says. “All of my favorite movies have open endings. You’re putting the audience in an uncomfortable place where they’re asked to do the work. But too bad. It’s like, ‘I’m trying to respect you guys. I know you can do it.’”

The night they won the DGA and PGA honors, Coco headed to Akbar in Silver Lake with some friends. Baker and Quan went straight home to bed. The director had an early morning photo shoot he was leading the next day for W Magazine.

“I was buzzing,” Baker says. “It was hard to settle down.”

So how did you go to sleep?

Quan looks at me like I’m a child. She closes her eyes and mimes her head hitting a pillow. “I gotta go to sleep. If I don’t, I’m dead.”

“We’re trained to do that,” Baker says. “My brain is like, ‘If you don’t fall asleep, there’s going to be a domino effect.’”

This ability will come in handy over the weekend. Baker will be traveling to San Francisco on Thursday for an academy screening of “Anora,” then to New York on Saturday for the Writers Guild Awards and finally to London the next day for the British Academy Film Awards — though, apparently, much of this is news to Baker. (Remember that earlier comment about “never fully informing” himself?)

“Wait a minute,” he says, looking at Quan and Coco. “I’m doing WGA?”

“Yes, Saturday,” Coco tells him. “Then BAFTA Sunday.”

Baker slumps in his seat and starts laughing. Or is he weeping?

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” he says. He’s editing a movie he produced and co-wrote with Taiwanese filmmaker Tsou Shih-Ching titled “Left-Handed Girl,” and they’re trying to finish to make festival deadlines.

“I have like another 10 days,” he says, shaking his head.

“He’s had another 10 days for like 100 days,” Coco tells me.

“No, this is really pushing it,” Baker says. “It’s incredibly scary.”

This is scary? What about the Oscars?

“Well, one step at a time,” Baker says.

Rothberg doesn’t have any more reels to change. It’s time to head down to the theater for the Q&A. “Anora’s” journey is almost at an end.

Captain America: Brave New World, 2025.

Directed by Julius Onah.
Starring Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Shira Haas, Carl Lumbly, Tim Blake Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Xosha Roquemore, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, William Mark McCullough, Takehiro Hira, Harsh Nayyar, Alan Boell, John Cihangir, Eric Mbanda, Josh Robin, Sharon Tazewell, and Pete Burris.

SYNOPSIS:

Sam Wilson, the new Captain America, finds himself in the middle of an international incident and must discover the motive behind a nefarious global plan.

Early on in the utterly pointless overload of characters, story, and action that make up the forgettable Captain America: Brave New World, United States President Thaddeus Ross (now played by Harrison Ford, taking over the role from the deceased William Hurt back when the character was a military officer) pulls the new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) aside, attempting to work through some political differences before issuing a wish to have him rebuild a new Avengers.

Given what we know is coming (Robert Downey Jr. revealed to be returning to the franchise, this time to play Victor von Doom) and that numerous other heroes and villains have been teased across ending credits stingers, it’s not a bad idea to make a film that’s primary function is to get that ball rolling. It would also be an opportunity to dive further into Sam Wilson’s character, figuring out what kind of leader he wants to be and what he would look for throughout a recruitment process. Such a thing would also give Marvel Cinematic Universe overlord Kevin Feige a chance to move forward and begin building toward something, anything that might bring back the major event feel of these blockbuster extravaganzas.

As the mention of Thaddeus Ross has already implied, Captain America: Brave New World is a sequel to The Incredible Hulk. It’s also a follow-up to the Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier with some expected references to Captain America: Winter Soldier and Avengers: Endgame. As soon as characters start talking it’s also evident that even Kevin Feige knows a significant portion of the viewer base probably hasn’t seen everything, meaning that the screenplay (from the obscenely crowded team of director Julius Onah, Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman, Dalan Musson, and Peter Glanz) is littered with noticeably awkward exposition bringing up past events and summarizing who they are, what they have been through, what they are currently feeling, and what’s next.

Not only is this an unwieldy jumble, but the film also doesn’t have much to do with putting together a new team. Instead, this MCU installment is centered on the truth behind an assassination attempt on the life of Thaddeus Ross, with the tortured and experimented-on original super soldier Isaiah Bradley (a returning Carl Lumbly) as the vengeful prime suspect. Due to Sam Wilson’s connection with Isaiah, Thaddeus Ross removes this new Captain America from the investigation. Naturally, he doesn’t abide, as he and his Falcon protégé Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) are convinced someone is pulling the strings.

They uncover something sinister in the process that I won’t spoil. Meanwhile, Thaddeus Ross continues working ahead on a Celestial Island treaty (look at that, I forgot one; technically, this is also a sequel to Eternals) where adamantium has been found. There is an additional layer of global intrigue with Giancarlo Esposito’s mercenary Sidewinder initially trying to steal and sell a fraction of it to a mysterious buyer. However, that opening segment feels as if it was initially part of something else, only for the script rewrites to come along and force it to connect to the adamantium. There is a lot of noticeable patchwork here that the filmmakers seemingly hope is ignored and buried underneath the copious amounts of weightless action.

These numerous battles seem to be putting Sam Wilson under a test, causing him to wonder if he should have taken the super soldier serum to make the superhero job easier on himself or if he is right in carving out his vision of Captain America. This somewhat ties into Thaddeus Ross’ character of hoping that his daughter Betty Ross (Liv Tyler in The Incredible Hulk) will notice that he has apparently tried to become a better person and that she will forget him. Aside from wanting to walk back his stance of initially being against augmented superheroes, there is nothing to gauge what kind of person or president he currently is. The rest of his arc is mired in a mystery that’s not so mysterious because, even though I am prohibited from spoiling anything significant in this review, the numerous damn trailers have already told you where this goes in the last 20 minutes.

It’s aggravating waiting and waiting for THAT to happen finally. Still, it also speaks to a larger problem here: Marvel is desperate to regain that box office glory to the point of outright spoiling key plot points in the marketing. There are still a few minor surprises, although nothing remotely exciting. Even the action, while abundant, feels driven by nothing and tossed in as a distraction from the outrageously convoluted plotting. The sole exception is CGI-fueled destruction at the end that, while still looking a bit unfinished if visually impressive, is mildly entertaining for the characters in the fight and its setting.

For those who thought Captain America: Brave New World would serve as a movie of the moment observing a problematic president when the actual United States currently has one, hoping that the fictional one might receive some comeuppance, that is not the case. The grand message here is eye-rolling, especially given what the real America is going through. What’s most frustrating is that for a “brave new world, “this is the same new mediocrity. Shield yourselves from this one.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com