Adorable story of a high school senior in Sacramento, with Saoirse Ronan playing Greta Gerwig to a T. The humor is perceptive and non-stop, never broad, and the lead character works her believability into our minds and hearts. The coda in New York raises more questions than it answers and could have been omitted, but […]
Remarkable for what it was, an artistic portrait of refugee populations around the globe. Among the things it didn’t try to do: identify the causes of the refugee crisis, suggest solutions, blame anyone, show squalor or desperation, or make the audience feel guilty or bad. Like a good artwork, the film presents itself and lets […]
On the plus side: A love letter to France, its small towns and its people (the French title, Visages Villages, says it better). The art of JR – huge black-and-white photo portraits pasted on local walls – that makes you smile. The negative: whereas in many documentaries I am amazed how people ignore the fact […]
At one point we are intrigued by the face-off between two of France’s great actresses, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marion Cotillard, who are both mysteriously attracted to the Woody Allen type, played by Matthieu Amalric, who is the confusing center of this film. Then the plot, such as it is, goes off the tracks and we […]
A movie about a not-especially-charming brat being “raised” by a mother who lies, cheats and steals and accepts no responsibility, with the seemingly inevitable result that the mother will go off to jail and the daughter will turn into her mother. I don’t know director Sean Baker’s point, but it’s hard to have any sympathy […]
What a relief, after seeing a trio of heavy, intellectual films at the New York Film Festival, to watch a thoroughly enjoyable, funny and teary, battle in which almost everyone is a winner, above all Billie Jean King. The movie is more about her complicated love life than her tennis, but there is enough historic […]
The artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is the hole at the middle of this documentary: we never hear his voice, don’t see his paintings, learn nothing of his background, and catch only fleeting glimpses of his face. Instead, we get talking heads remembering the days when he emerged on the Lower East Side scene. What the film […]
Sort of a cross between Last Year at Marienbad and Aguirre, Wrath of God, this Argentine period drama offered memorable still images – loved that tricorner hat! – but not much continuity or sensible plot. Life was pretty crummy in Spanish South America, and I was happy to have a shower afterward. A bit of […]
An intense two hours of close-ups of a bewildered Jennifer Lawrence’s face, as she copes with a haunted house and situations beyond her control. It’s not a movie that makes much sense, but neither does a Hieronymous Bosch altarpiece. Javier Bardem is only slightly nicer than he was in No Country for Old Men, but […]
Although this film takes place in Baltimore, it might as well be another country, so foreign to my personal experience is the world it shows, starting with sport? competition? of “step,” which is sort of like synchronized swimmng on land. This is one of those heartwarming documentaries that gets lucky, as we follow a group […]
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