Why a biopic on David Crosby?, I wondered before I saw the movie, and 90 minutes later the question remained unanswered. Crosby’s life, as told here, is neither inspiring, entertaining, nor cautionary. His talent is obscured, the cause of his drug addiction unexplored, and the one overriding fact of his life – that everyone hates […]
You are immediately in the hands of a master filmmaker and storyteller and are in for 2:40 of fun plus :05 of trademark Tarantino violence. The story is not much. The setting is pretty much everything: August 1969 in Hollywood, with tons of vintage cars, songs, marquees, famous people and those old metal ice trays […]
Perfectly pleasant, rather conventional character study of a would-be country singer who was too immature or irresponsible to be much of a mother. Since the dialogue was in Glaswegian English it was a bit like watching a foreign film without subtitles. I don’t think I missed much, though.
Two hours of Lily James as the new generation’s Keira Knightley is reason enough to watch Yesterday. Then there is the music of the Beatles, never better, even though sung by Himesh Patel rather than John and Paul. And the cherry on top is Kate McKinnon, chewing scenery like it’s cotton candy. Nothing in the plot […]
Emma Thompson is eminently watchable and typically impeccable as an imperious but fading late-night talk-show host, and the humor is practically non-stop and of my favorite variety: mocking frat-boy, white-male privilege. Having Paul Walter Hauser in the cast is a good start, and the film slips in a few substantive issues to consider along the […]
Bookstupid is more like it. Every line tries hard to be funny, but very few are. The characters and situations are absurd, from the initial premise to every scene I saw before I walked out.
A sweet, family-friendly parable of doing well by doing good, as natural, organic farming methods restore barren earth and, fertilized by patience and love, make it bountiful. Coyotes a problem? Redirect them from your chickens – bad – to your gophers – good! Throw in a baleful-eyed dog and an Earth Mother pig and the […]
Smartly edited small movie about not much: Gloria has a job, goes dancing, meets a guy, deals with her grown-up kids and her ex-husband; then things are resolved, in not terribly satisfactory or exciting fashion, and life goes on. The movie is all about Julianne Moore’s performance, which is fine, except she is much too […]
Seeing eleven plays (with one rain-out) in four weeks gave me, if nothing else, a better sense of my taste in theater. If only I could relate that to reviews I read, going forward. There were two shows I left without a complaint, Kiss Me, Kate and Caroline’s Kitchen – one a relatively straightforward revival […]
Disappointing. There’s no attempt at rock history, as Elton John’s songs are shoehorned into the plot wherever a lyric suggests relevance, regardless of chronology. OK, so it’s a fantasy (a la Baz Luhrmann), not a biopic. But there’s not much of a plot, either; it’s a therapy session in which Elton relives his unhappy childhood, […]
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