Crip Camp – 5
Not my cup of tea. There was a transition from home-video clips of a summer camp for handicapped teens to the fight for civil rights of the disabled leading to the ADA, but I was asleep and missed it.
Author Archive for: Bob Marshall
Entries by Bob Marshall
Quo Vadis, Aida? – 8.5
A true story about the Serbs’ 1995 massacre of Bosnians in Srebenica is told in sidelong fashion by focusing, instead, on the motherly desperation of Aida, a Bosnian translator working for the UN in its “safe haven,” to protect her husband and two sons. Jasna Duricic is sensational as the competent and fiercely determined translator, […]
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet – 7.5
It’s hard to “rate” a beautifully made film on the end of the world as we know it, just as it is hard to watch it. I don’t need to be reminded what humans have done to climate, habitat and the cause of biodiversity in the last 70 years, but Attenborough’s personal testimony, measured and […]
Made You Look – 7
A workmanlike talkumentary about the Knoedler Gallery’s sale of 60 forged AbEx paintings, in which all sides are presented but only one is credible. There was nothing here I hadn’t read in ArtNews, but it was interesting to see the characters in person, especially gallerist Ann Freedman, whose icy but unconvincing resolve that she wasn’t […]
Promising Young Woman – 6.5
This is either (1) a biting critique of sex-hungry men (i.e., all men) who take advantage of defenseless women and the women who enable them; and/or (2) a horror film about a psychopath who seeks revenge on all around her through a series of impossible actions. The climax is so implausible that you realize you’d […]
Minari – 5.5
Undoubtedly a worthy film deserving its accolades, but it just didn’t connect. I thought the child actors were lame, the burning barn a melodramatic plot device, and Mr. Yi’s ability to build a working farm almost singlehandedly while holding down another full-time job too unlikely. But what most bothered me was the way every scene […]
I Care A Lot – 4
This New York Times “Critics Pick” allegedly ” seesaws between comedy and horror,” but being neither funny nor scary, what is left? A cartoonish battle between an icy abuser of senior citizens and a Russian mafioso who exploits mules to traffic drugs. Do we care who wins or survives? Not really. There could be a […]
Alphabetical List of 2021 Movies
Another Round Being the Ricardos Belfast Bergman Island Better Days Black Bear C’mon C’mon CODA Cry Macho David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet The Dig Don’t Look Up Drive My Car The Electrical World of Louis Wain The Forty-Year-Old Version The French Dispatch Hand of God A Hero Herself I Care A Lot I’m […]
Top Ten 2005
Crash. I liked the characters, the interlocking stories, the comments on race relations , but best of all – especially for a Hollywood movie – was the moral complexity:
Top Ten 2008
1.Amal. So far as I know, this was never commercially released, but it was my favorite film from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Set in a very real India (not the heightened India of Slumdog)
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