Hilarious! Antonio Banderas steals the movie, as well as the movie-within-the-movie, in a master class of actors acting at acting–all very meta. A bewigged Penelope Cruz is perfection as a dominatrix director, and Argentinian actor Oscar Martinez holds his own against showboat performances from his Spanish co-stars. The plot is a stage for a string […]
A tight and satisfying little horror film. The bloody denouement doesn’t really make sense–this isn’t Hitchcock or Wait Until Dark–but the more realistic tension is in the marriage: how can the husband bring his bride to Bucharest, where she knows no one and doesn’t speak the language, and ignore her isolation? Santa Barbara-born Maika Monroe is […]
A ridiculous cartoon version of Elvis Presley’s life that, amazingly, is neither fun to watch or listen to. The real Elvis was sexy, dangerous and larger than life; Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is mild, pretty and vanilla, a seeming leftover from the cast of Beverly Hills 90210. Elvis’s stage presence and movements were electric; Austin Butler’s […]
A one-joke movie (if you can call it a “joke”) that proceeds slowly, in a direct line, without subplot or supporting cast (maybe a Covid project?). As adroit as Emma Thompson’s acting is, her character is scarcely believable, from premise to finish. If, on the other hand, you take this as a Disney fantasy, and […]
Predictable, cliched, unrealistic and a total throwback, but what a pleasure, after Petite Maman, Everything Everywhere, and Crimes of the Future, to see a movie that made us cheer, laugh and cry, all on cue. Jennifer Connelly is a treat on the eyes, Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, the supporting cast, led by Jon Hamm, […]
In 50 minutes I couldn’t make out the premise, and the characters, action and language (Chinese) were so unpleasant that we figured anything we might do at home would be more fun.
A “love story” without chemistry set in a fairly bleak future world where public surgery to remove spontaneously growing extraneous organs is the hot ticket. This resembles a George Saunders short story or a Remedios Varo painting on steroids. Director David Cronenberg is the master of the “body horror” genre. One has to wonder why, […]
A provocative documentary about whaling in the Faroe Islands–specifically, an annual (or more) slaughter of pilot whales unfortunately called a “grind.” While the killing is stomach-turning and Sea Shepherd activists politely present the arguments against, the local islanders, and the filmmakers, ask why is this different from slaughterhouse killing of the other animals we eat.
No surprises and nothing original, but in managing to tie up multiple stories with happy endings for everybody–and I mean everybody–Julian Fellowes brought a few tears to my eyes and gave us a pleasant afternoon in the movie house. Everything was a bit pat and no scene lasted more than its allotted 60 seconds; it was […]
This one required a suspension of disbelief that I couldn’t quite muster. Or maybe it didn’t. Or maybe I missed something when the slow pace put me briefly to sleep. Two look-alike 8-year-old girls meet in the woods and I kept waiting–mercifully for only 1:18–for a plot to emerge. Three points for sincerity.
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