Archive for year: 2018

This was shaping up as an excellent study of a marriage, with Glenn Close accommodating herself to the shadow cast by her Nobel Prize-winning husband, but then it took a horribly wrong and totally unnecessary turn that was both totally unbelievable and made us rethink, and doubt, the wonderful characterization that Close had offered before. It didn’t help that the Jonathan Pryce character was presented without redeeming qualities and that the son was introduced mainly for Pryce to be mean to. I don’t see Close winning the rumored Oscar for this, but I will say the movie lends itself to discussion.

A charming rom-com in the Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts mold that might have scored even higher if I could have understood the English (Irish/Australian) accents. All four characters were delightful: the beauteous Rose Byrne, the humorously cloddish Chris O’Dowd, the talented slacker Ethan Hawke and the precocious Azhy Robertson, who at maybe 9 years old was clearly the sanest of the bunch. As befits a Nick Hornby story, the music was fabulous: “Different Drum,” “Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl,” “Waterloo Sunset” as well as the not-bad “Tucker Crowe” originals. What fun to watch an easy-to-follow movie with no bad guys, no nervous or cringing moments, just a path full of interesting details for the characters to figure out their way in life.

I wondered why someone would want to make a movie about a barely-was has-been, hooked on heroin, mad at the world, as she tries to rebuild a flimsy career in unlicensed Eastern European venues. The last 15 minutes, the film started to click, Nico’s voice sounded better, and I sort of appreciated the punkness of the director’s efforts and, if nothing else, the acting showcase it provided Trine Dyrholm. Not every painting is beautiful, nor is every life.

Kudos to Spike Lee, who masterfully tells a story and envelops it in a personal statement about racism in America, past and present. Adam Driver has never been better, and there are fun roles for Steve Buscemi’s younger brother, Harry Belafonte and the goofy guy from I,Tonya. There’s a prologue and an epilogue that, strictly speaking, don’t belong in the movie about Ron Stallworth, but they add gravitas, and current relevance, to a story that might otherwise be hard to take seriously. When I read a piece in the next day’s Times about a Midwestern audience watching the new Dinesh D’Souza movie, I felt I was back in Colorado Springs.

Excruciating and exquisite at the same time, this movie walks a fine line beautifully: we see Kayla Day at her most unattractive, yet we like her all the same. She has enough acne to be real, but not so much that we look away. And if anybody doesn’t identify with at least one scene, if not many, they have surely forgotten what it was like to be 14. Josh Hamilton’s Dad is a bouncy counterpoint, keeping things light; and the movie’s use of social media is so today, just perfect. I don’t think I’m the target audience for this film, but I loved it.