“Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.” It’s fitting that the Aeschylus quote on the opening of James Gray’s riveting Paper Tiger evokes Greek tragedy. In this piercing account of the American Dream in tatters, the magnitude of that dimension feels appropriate, echoing the currents of betrayal, fear and death that course through the film like rivulets of blood. Calling it a sequel would be reductive, but the haunting drama is a companion piece to Gray’s 2022 film, Armageddon Time, again rooted in the director’s childhood. But it’s closer both thematically and tonally to his brooding 1994 debut feature, Little Odessa. 

That lends Gray’s ninth and arguably best film a gratifying full-circle symmetry. The director has often mined personal and family history for dramatic inspiration — the Vanessa Redgrave character dying of a brain tumor in Little Odessa, just as Gray’s mother did; the passage of his émigré grandparents through Ellis Island, which informed key parts of The Immigrant; his own bittersweet coming of age, when his eyes were opened to prejudice and inequality in Armageddon Time. 

Paper Tiger is fundamentally a crime thriller, clearly adopting a free hand with fictionalization. But it’s just as much a domestic drama that plucks elements from Gray’s childhood, casting Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller as his parents Hester and Irwin, variations on Esther and Irving, the roles played by Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong in Armageddon Time. 

Initial plans were for Hathaway and Strong to reprise those parts, but when scheduling conflicts caused both actors to drop out, Gray decided to take the project in a different, more heightened direction. It became a bracing melodrama — the good kind, fueled by raw emotional power, not the artificial kind that traffics in overwrought audience manipulation — with a dark, burdened heart.

Gray and his older brother are again represented, this time as Scott (Gavin Goudey), about to turn 18 and go off to college, and Ben (Roman Engel), the younger brother he picks on. They both worship their Uncle Gary (Adam Driver), a former cop who is everything their engineering nerd dad is not. Gary drives a fancy car, wears sharp suits and, coolest of all, packs a gun in an ankle holster.

It’s not a big leap to imagine Gary getting into some shady business dealings, even if his record on the force was clean and he has remained in good standing with bureau chief Bob (Patrick Murney), a buddy who can occasionally be tapped for useful information.

A century earlier, Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal was among the world’s most polluted waterways, befouling the entire Eastern Seaboard with tons of toxic waste. Even in 1986, the eye-watering stench of the murky waters remained. Irwin at first scoffs at the idea that the decaying industrial area could ever be gentrified. But Gary — who buttered up his brother by rolling up for dinner with caterers from Peter Luger Steak House and is considered in the family to have the Midas touch with business deals — persuades Irwin to hear him out on a proposed partnership.

Downplaying the fact that he’s in talks with the Russian mob to nail a lucrative contract, Gary whisks Irwin over to Gowanus to see their supposed cleanup operation and meet the thuggish type in charge, Alexei (Yavor Vesselinov). The Russians are looking for a way to get around city regulations, so Gary attempts to convince them they need his connections and his brother’s engineering know-how, proposing a consulting agreement. Despite being told by Gary to let him do the talking, Irwin starts asking questions, making Alexei prickly.

This is Driver’s best role in some time. Gary is a calculated charmer adored by his brother’s family; anytime he visits their modest suburban home in Queens feels like an occasion. But he’s also selective about sharing the truth, counting on Irwin’s lack of street smarts by reassuring him that the Russians are paper tigers, far less threatening than they appear. 

Like an expert salesman, he convinces Irwin that a financial windfall is right at their fingertips. He shrugs off his brother’s concern about where all that industrial sludge will go by saying their involvement will be purely in an advisory capacity; it’s up to the Russians what they do with the information he and Irwin provide.

In a harrowing sequence that dials the churning dread up several notches, Irwin drives the boys over to Brooklyn one school night, against their frazzled mother’s wishes, to show them Uncle Gary’s get-rich-quick scheme. He leaves his sons in the car as he steps out to inform the workers of a safety hazard, which turns Alexei and his goons violent. While Irwin is getting smacked around, two mobsters terrorize the boys in the car before kicking them out and driving off in it. The most chilling moment is when Alexei after looking at Irwin’s papers says, “So now we know where you live.”

We are in prime James Gray territory as Irwin wrestles with the instinct to call the cops, he and the completely freaked-out boys opt to keep the incident from Hester and tensions escalate between him and Gary. It’s gripping stuff, directed with unerring tonal control and blanketed in ominous stormclouds by Christopher Spelman’s magnificently unsettling, full-bodied score, mixed in with the occasional bit of lugubrious Russian choral music.

While Gary is pissed at his brother for sticking his nose in and ruffling the Russians’ feathers, he’s cocky enough to believe he can saunter in and fix things with a few calming words. But that’s not how mob boss Semion Bogoyavich (Victor Ptak), who controls a vast criminal network, operates. The Russians regard Irwin’s unannounced visit as a grave breach of trust, setting a hefty price to make the problem go away. 

The spiral of menace is breathtaking as Gary continues to dig them in deeper with his misplaced confidence and reckless moves, and a bone-chilling warning left in the dead of night forces Irwin to bring Hester up to date. Johansson has never been better, notably so as she’s simultaneously gripped by rage and blood-curdling fear when she learns of the danger to which Irwin exposed their sons.

Teller also expands his range in an affecting performance that sees Irwin struggling with regret, self-castigation, disillusionment with the brother he has always admired and stone-cold terror for the fate of his family.

Meanwhile, Hester has been privately dealing with mental lapses and throbbing headaches, refraining from telling her family about the medical tests her doctor ordered. Nor does she tell her good-natured meddler of a mother (Cindy Katz), who’s forever nudging them to get out of the city and move to Great Neck. Johansson plays her with a tough edge to match her Queens accent, but Hester is clearly petrified by this perfect storm of ugly events.

In a movie that’s almost operatic in its cymbal clashes of violence, its agonizing tensions and vicious threats, the heartstopping scene in which Hester receives her diagnosis at the doctor’s office is perhaps the single most devastating moment. It’s a shock even though it’s been amply foreshadowed.

There’s no shortage of other dramatic crests, among them a climactic shoot-out in a cornfield that’s a model of steadily mounting suspense. And the ending hits just the right note, both tragic and redemptive.

Paper Tiger is a great-looking movie — cinematographer Joaquin Baca-Asay (who shot We Own the Night and Two Lovers for Gray) slathers on the dark, gritty textures while never stepping too far into noirish stylization. And editor Scott Morris delivers a compact cut of just under two hours that nonetheless breathes like an epic. While the obvious antecedents outside of Gray’s own body of work might be Coppola or Lumet or Scorsese or Mann, I kept thinking while watching of the early crime films of Akira Kurosawa, from Drunken Angel and Stray Dog up to the classic police procedural, High and Low. 

Gray and his superb cast are in blazing form and full command here in a bruising movie that reveals the heavy price of pursuing the American Dream too recklessly, instead of heeding Aeschylus’ words. The Ronald Reagan era now seems a precise point on the country’s timeline when wealth became an obsession, no longer just a goal.

Curry Barker is quickly emerging as one of horror’s most notable new voices. Even mega-producer Jason Blum has praised Barker as one of the most exciting horror filmmakers working today. With his latest film, Obsession, now playing, Barker sat down to discuss the project, his approach to horror, and what’s next.

To begin, Barker opened up about his longtime creative partnership with Cooper Tomlinson, who stars in the film alongside a cast of talented new actors, revealing that their collaboration dates all the way back to their time in film school before the pair ultimately decided to leave and pursue filmmaking full time. Barker explained that after dropping out, the two began creating content together, eventually launching their sketch comedy brand “That’s A Bad Idea,” which helped build their audience online and laid the groundwork for future projects like Obsession. Watch the clip below.

Elsewhere in the conversation, Barker reflected on the breakout success of his low-budget horror film Milk & Cereal, which gained significant traction online and helped introduce his work to a wider audience. When asked whether the viral response marked the moment Hollywood began taking notice, Barker admitted he believes it was the project that pushed him into the mainstream conversation, particularly as industry publications and entertainment outlets began paying attention to his work and creative voice. Watch the clip below.

The momentum continued to build as Barker spoke about receiving early praise from influential horror producer Jason Blum, who has described him as one of the most exciting emerging voices in the genre. Barker said the support has been deeply meaningful to him, adding that Blum has been “awesome” in championing his work. He also teased that their relationship is far from a one-off collaboration, noting that the two are expected to continue working together on future projects as his profile in the horror space continues to grow. Watch the clip below.

In casting his lead for Obsession, Barker also detailed how he discovered his actor for “Bear”, played by Michael Johnston. Barker explained that the performer was initially on a casting shortlist and stood out immediately due to his extensive voiceover background — something Barker didn’t even realize at first. What caught his attention most was his voice itself, which Barker described as uniquely compelling and emotionally textured. That quality, combined with a subtle edge of darkness he sensed in the actor’s presence, ultimately made him feel Johnston was the perfect fit for Bear, a character who required both vulnerability and an undercurrent of unease. Watch the clip below.

In discussing the film’s more extreme edges, Barker revealed that one particular sequence (SPOILER ALERT!) involving the character Sarah nearly pushed Obsession into NC-17 territory. Barker said the scene, in its original cut, was significantly more intense, ultimately forcing him to pull back on certain elements in order to avoid the restrictive rating. He noted that while the moment remains one of the film’s most charged, the adjustments were necessary to preserve the film’s broader accessibility without losing the emotional and psychological weight that made the sequence effective in the first place. Watch the clip below.

Rounding out the conversation, Barker briefly touched on his ambitions beyond Obsession, pointing to a clear desire to continue expanding within the horror genre while also pushing into new creative territory. He also teased upcoming work tied to A24’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre project, as well as Anything But Ghosts, signaling a busy slate ahead as he builds on his momentum and continues shaping his voice across both established franchises and original material. Watch the clip below.

‘Obsession’ is now playing in theaters.

Documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom has died after a battle with the rare brain disease progressive supranuclear palsy, his wife, Wild author Cheryl Strayed, revealed. Lindstrom was 65.

“Brian Lindstrom died this morning the way he lived — with gentleness and courage, grace and gratitude for his beautiful life,” Strayed wrote in an Instagram post announcing his death. “Our children, Carver and Bobbi, and I held him as he took his last breath and we will hold him forever in our hearts. The only thing more immense than our sorrow that Progressive Supranuclear Palsy took our beloved Brian from us is the endless love we have for him.”

Lindstrom was diagnosed with what Strayed referred to as a “fatal illness” just two weeks prior to his death. Progressive supranuclear palsy is a frontotemporal disorder caused by damage to nerve cells in areas of the brain that control thinking and body movements. PSP has some symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease and affecting walking and balance.

Lindstrom’s work as a documentary filmmaker, Strayed said, focused on telling stories of people who, as Lindstrom said, “society puts an X through.”

“He erased that X with his camera and his astonishing heart,” Strayed wrote. “He made films about incarcerated moms and their kids, about people with mental illness and substance use disorders, about teens living in homeless shelters, foster care and detention centers, about people who were at the bottom and trying to climb up.”


She added, “He showed them to us so we’d see what he saw: that every one of us is deserving of love and respect; mercy and honor. Again and again, he went to the darkness to show us how much light is there. He was of service. He spoke truth to power. He measured his success by asking if his films made an impact — and they did. They saved programs and people; changed lives, policies, and minds. They made people feel seen, heard and believed. They softened the world with their empathy.”

His credits included documentaries Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse (2013) and Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill (2022), his last project, about the late singer-songwriter featuring interviews with Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby and Graham Nash. Strayed served as an executive producer on both projects and served as an associate and executive producer, respectively, on the screen adaptations of her books Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things.

Strayed praised Lindstrom as a husband and father, writing, “What tremendous luck it was to be his partner for more than thirty years. We loved each other and our kids with deep devotion and true delight. He was a stellar husband. He was the most magnificent dad. He was a man whose every word and deed was driven by kindness, compassion, and generosity. He saw the goodness in everyone. He believed that we are all sacred and redeemable.”

His kids, whom Strayed called his “greatest legacy,” “embody everything good and true about their father.”

“Their extraordinary grace, courage and fortitude during this harrowing time was unfaltering and grounded in the undying love Brian poured into them every day of their lives,” she wrote. “We do not know how we will live without him. We’re utterly bereft. We can only walk this dark path and search for the beauty Brian knew was there. It will be his eternal light that guides us.”