I marveled at the quality of this documentary: the concert footage from 50 years ago was phenomenal, and the larger story of Black history and culture was woven in seamlessly. The crowd shots, albeit a tad repetitive, were worth the price of admission, as was Sly and the Family Stone’s rendition of “Everyday People.” In […]
Not exactly Rent, not quite West Side Story, but a clear precursor to Hamilton. The story was far too thin to support the boatload of production numbers that followed on each other’s heels–so many that, despite their individual brilliance, they became tiresome. “How about a good song, instead of another ensemble dance?,” I found myself thinking. Unless you […]
Although I gave Mangrove my vote for (co-)best film of 2021, I haven’t separately reviewed the other four installments of Steve McQueen’s five-part reminiscence of West Indian life in racist London in the ’70s and ’80s. Each film stands on its own, although all share a common venue and sensibility: Black Londoners trying to get along […]
More style than substance, Christian Petzold’s fourth film was a disappointment after his remarkable earlier trio of Barbara, Phoenix and Transit. The title plus a Wikipedia search clued you in to the possible water-spriteness of the female lead (the excellent Paula Beer), but the myth in question didn’t track the plot, nor was it clear why Undine […]
A gem of a movie, narrow in scope but enlarged by the great acting of Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. By confining the set to, basically, two rooms and a hallway, we were forced into the mind of the father, struggling absent-mindedly with dementia. The film is mercifully short, as we get the picture early […]
A retrograde anti-propaganda film, if such there be, taking down Soviet Communism for its top-down bureaucracy that creates inequality, inertia, oppression and distrust. Filmed in black-and-white and recalling Russian cinema of the late ’50s (The Cranes Are Flying, Ballad of A Soldier, etc.), Andrei Konchalovsky’s take on a 1962 workers’ strike that was brutally suppressed is […]
This was a charming journey inside a senior citizens center in Chile, reminiscent of Laura Gabbert’s Sunset Story but with less plot. In fact, what plot there was seemed to be a set-up: I don’t believe there was a client concerned that her mother was being mistreated; I think that was a ruse to get this […]
While this was more effective as a romance than an anti-bullying message film, what most sticks in mind is the brutal picture of life in China for high-school seniors. Made in Hong Kong in 2019 (but up for an Academy Award this year), could it have been intended as a critique of mainland education, which […]
People frequently ask for my Oscar predictions or preferences, so I will hazard the latter. The New York Times, among others, takes the fun and guesswork out of the former by polling voters and announcing results that tend to be more accurate than they are for the political elections. To my mind, Trial of the Chicago […]
A baffling subject, at least for this non-Scandinavian: drinking alcohol, on the job and eventually to excess. Rather than condemn the practice, the movie seemed to show that it helped some, while killing others. So maybe the subject was really about mid-life (turning 40) crisis, or male bonding, with the booze as catalyst, or backdrop. […]
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