I haven’t seen “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” but I feel like I have: Jessica Chastain, the star, has worked like crazy flying all over the world promoting it. Chastain, one of our best actresses, also produced it. She deserves five stars for pitching in.

Chastain has gotten uniformly great reviews for playing Tammy Faye Bakker, someone most us thought little about beyond “SNL” parody sketches. But Chastain saw a character she could play and make human in the televangelist wife of even weirder Jim Bakker (pronounced Baker if you’ve never heard this story).

Still, the movie itself has been a dud with critics. Our Leah Sydney really liked it, but many others didn’t including the New York Times. A.O. Scott wrote: “The Bakkers were many things to many people: appalling, inspiring, laughable, sad. This movie succeeds in making them dull.”

But Ann Hornaday wrote in The Washington Post: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” gives viewers an absorbing, amusing and provocative chance to rethink yet another train wreck who turned out to be, of all things, human.”

Awards Radar said: “Jessica Chastain puts this one on her back and takes it across the finish line. ” And this one from USA Today: “It’s going to be tough not to worship at the altar of Jessica Chastain throughout this Oscar season.”

I agree, I think Jessica Chastain deserves an Oscar just being Jessica Chastain. But Searchlight, which is now part of Disney, is only releasing “Tammy Faye” into 470 theaters this weekend. That’s a small release, which is surprising to those of who’ve watched Chastain in the media. She deserved a bigger throw, I think. Still, if they do well they can always place it on Disney Plus or Hulu. I will catch up with it just to see Chastain and co-star Andrew Garfield sometime this next week.

Clint Eastwood is 91 years old, has directed and starred in his seventh movie in the last seven years. It’s kind of amazing.  As productive as Eastwood has been as a director and an actor, this recent run will be thought as a golden period, from “American Sniper” — an Oscar nominee — through “Richard Jewell,” “The Mule,” and “Sully,” a Tom Hanks vehicle that holds up beautifully.

So here we have Clint himself starring in “Cry Macho,” based on a Richard Nash novel from the 70s and set in 1980. It co-stars a country singer, Dwight Yoakam, who doesn’t sing in the film, a Mexican actress (Natalia Traven) who doesn’t speak English in it, another Mexican actress who does, a 15 year old Mexican actor making his US  debut, and a rooster (actually 11 roosters). It also features the amazing Oscar worthy cinematography of award winner Ben Davis.

So there.

It’s a simple story: Yoakam’s character, Howard Polk, is a seedy business guy in Texas who’s been employing and taking care of Clint’s cowboy Mike for a long time. Mike is a rodeo guy and journeyman with a great hat, a typical Clint character. Howard wants Mike to go down to Mexico City, find his abandoned 15 year old son, Raffa, pry him away from his no-good, hard partying mother (who beats him), and bring him back. There’s a financial aspect, too, since Howard will use the kid as leverage in business dealings with the mother.

Mike says yep, he’ll do it, because he owes Dwight. Even though he’s 91. No one comments on that, even though Mike looks little frail at the beginning. But off he goes on the adventure, just as Clint did in “The Mule,” gamely and without hesitation. In short order he finds Rafa, played by the talented 15 year old Eduardo Minett, and they seek refuge with Marta (brilliant Natalia Traven) at her cafe, where she’s taking care of several small granddaughters. Rafa’s mom doesn’t like this, and keeps sending thugs after them.  Mike even punches one in the kisser. Simple, right?

We are far from “Dirty Harry” or “A Fistful of Dollars” or even “Play Misty for Me.” We’re also not on the grand level of Clint’s masterpiece, “Unforgiven.” This is a character study that strips away all the noise. It’s Eastwood’s sweetest movie, but that’s a deceptive way of describing it. As with a lot of his movies in the last decade — like my favorite, “Gran Torino” — Eastwood has developed an acute ear and X ray vision. He’s moving to his own different drummer, a rhythm that you have to adjust to these days. Listen: he’s telling us it’s important that “Cry Macho” is set in 1980 and rural Mexico, away from tech and cell phones etc.

A little of the set up is far-fetched, but I admire the fact that Eastwood still seems himself as a romantic figure. Good for him. (He gives all guys hope.) But once we settle in, Eastwood relaxes and so does Mike. He even has a conversation with a rooster. In his scene partners Traven and Minett, he’s found gems in that they make vivid portrayals immediate, and hold their own with Eastwood as if they’ve known him — and vice versa– for years.

“Cry Macho” hits theaters on Friday, and also HBO Max, where I suspect it will be a big hit. Davis’s photography is really sensational, I’m not kidding, I will go into a theater and see this one on a big screen just to revisit what he’s done with Mexico. (The government should give him an award.)

Is this the last Clint Eastwood movie? I sure hope not.

I’ve been saying this for months. Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” will win Best Picture next March. It releases on December 10th. The new trailer is sensational. What Spielberg has done is honor the stage musical and film with his own reverential take on the material. You can see it in this trailer.

Everyone looks terrific from Ansel Elgort (Tony) and Rachel Zegler (María) to Ariana DeBose (Anita); David Alvarez (Bernardo); Mike Faist (Riff); Josh Andrés Rivera (Chino); Ana Isabelle (Rosalía); Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank); Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke); and Rita Moreno (as Valentina, who owns the corner store in which Tony works). I want to see Brian d’Arcy James nominated as Best Supporting Actor. He’s going to be amazing.

Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay, so you know we’re in good hands. And look at the cinematography from two time Oscar winner Janusz Kaminski. You can already tell he’s got the whole thing very right. What sold me? The neon Gimbel’s sign. Nothing says 1957 like Gimbel’s in New York!

Last year the Academy went for small and intimate with “Nomadland.” This year, I predict they’re going to big, a welcome back to movies, with “West Side Story.” We need this one!

The Hamptons Film Festival announced their films this morning,and they are in super overdrive with hits. I’m impressed, they booked everything anyone would want to see for Columbus Day weekend.

HIFF has an exciting opening night film in Matthew Heinemann’s “The First Wave,” about hard hit New York hospital workers as COVID-19 attacked the city. The closing night film is Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” and the Centerpiece is Pablo Lorrain’s “Spencer,” starring Kristin Stewart as Princess Diana. Just those are colossal bookings for HIFF.

But then they’ve also got in their lineup Mike Mills’s “Cmon Cmon” with Joaquin Phoenix, Jane Campion’s “Power of the Dog,” Clifton Collins Jr in “Jockey” (I’ve seen it, and it’s terrific), Rebecca Hall’s “Passing” (excellent), Pedro Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers” with Penelope Cruz in her Venice award winning performance, and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directing debut in  “Lost Daughter.”

There’s also every hot documentary and foreign film imaginable for this season. To do this festival right I will have to rent an RV and live in the East Hampton parking lot. Insane!

Plus everyone must be vaxxed and bring their cards. No fooling around.

You can read the whole thing here.