As opposed to JoJo Rabbit, which tried – unsuccessfully, in my view – to mix slapstick with serious matter, Knives Out never faltered from its tone: spoof. The whodunit plot clicked into place marvelously, and all the characters got what they deserved , unless you consider the 85-year-old patriarch’s slitting his throat to have been a tad […]
An inventive mishmash of relationships with different, and largely incompatible, tones: JoJo and his friend Yorkie – traditional comic; JoJo and his mother (Scarlett Johansson, why?) – serious and tragic; JoJo and Adolf Hitler – absurdist comic; JoJo and Elsa – sweetly romantic; JoJo and Captain K (wonderful Sam Rockwell) – slapstick; JoJo and Jews […]
Robert DeNiro is an emotional black hole at the center of this 3-hour gangster epic. He is the narrator, speaking (to whom?) from a wheelchair in his nursing home, but I never felt anything from or about his extraordinary journey from trucker to hitman to union boss to convict to relic, not from his relationships to […]
During my Delta flight to Atlanta I caught up on two notable documentaries of summer 2019, one notable for its narrator, the other for not having one. I am a longtime fan of Werner Herzog’s films and inquiring mind, but not so much that I appreciated his equal billing with the former Soviet leader. Not […]
In what is both the cleanest and most brightly colored movie of the year, Pedro Almodovar gives a hauntingly autobiographical glimpse of the creative process – its sources, its pressures, its resolutions. The incomparable Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz, plus the wildly coiffed Asier Exteandia, never let your intentions stray as the story flashes forward, […]
Bizarre. Part absurdist comedy, part horror film, part sociological commentary, none of it strikes an emotional chord or makes you think too much. The vibe is similar to Jordan Peele’s movies (Get Out and particularly Us), but there’s no one to root for and the story is full of holes: e.g., how can the son end […]
A total upper of a movie. Her current Parkinson’s aside, Linda Ronstadt was presented as having a charmed life: great voice, wonderful friends, happy relationships, good career moves. And with it all, she was humble. None of the preening, drugs, breakups, bad managers and falls from grace that marked every other rock bio seen lately. […]
We gambled on eight not-yet-reviewed plays/musicals as the fall 2019 season kicked off on and near-Broadway. Four were total successes and four not so much. Linda Vista was the most traditional of the bunch, in structure and production. Totally enjoyable, lots of humor – both intelligent and bawdy – and characters you could discuss and […]
This kind of hilarious, over-the-top gangster flick is probably common in Japan (indeed, the director Takashi Miike has made almost 100 movies himself), but its sensibility is a rare treat for a New York audience (not to mention Santa Barbara). The casual violence (heads literally rolling), the tough-guy gangster attitude, the all-out gang war are […]
The last 60 seconds of “Over the Rainbow” brought tears to my eyes, but was that worth two hours of unrelieved misery, watching the pill-popping, self-destructive Judy Garland spiral in late career toward her death? Renee Zellweger’s tight face was painful to watch, her children were an embarrassment, and the attempt to make Judy sympathetic […]
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