A textbook example of “slow cinema,” which features long takes and nothing happening, Showing Up does not much more than its title. Michelle Williams plays a joyless depressive from a dysfunctional family who jousts with an unpleasantly aggressive Hong Chau. The main plot point involves a pigeon, which for director Kelly Reichardt is a step down […]
A small movie, like the best Vermeer paintings, and if not a similar masterpiece, one that told a fun story with clarity and the borrowed beauty of all the Vermeers. Just showing close-ups of the paintings in the Rijksmuseum exhibition would have been worth the admission price, but beyond the final show were two subplots […]
Ladies ruled the stage for our spring visit to New York, with the Tony going to Jodie Comer in Prima Facie, a legal delicacy and one-woman tour de force. Jessica Chastain was formidable in a necessarily smaller but no less affecting role in A Doll’s House. Jessica Hecht and Laura Linney complemented each other in […]
A movie of small moments, two couples in Manhattan with regular Manhattan jobs, like we used to get from Woody Allen. No guffaws, but lots of little laughs and a pleasant ride along a low-key plot. For me, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was too much “Elaine” to be convincing or particularly interesting and the happy ending was […]
Cleverly put together by Davis Guggenheim, this assisted autobiography features movie clips, simulated scenes and documentary footage on an armature of director-subject interview. All credit to Michael J. Fox for exposing himself and publicizing the plight of Parkinson’s patients, and he is ever charming and captivating. I still felt something was missing, that we were […]
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are having a great time, and the audience does too. It’s an inspirational story about Nike taking a chance on Michael Jordan as a rookie. There’s not much subtlety, but what’s wrong with that? We already know the ending and most of what happens along the way; our pleasure comes […]
Hip Hooray for Sally Hawkins and Ye Merrie Olde England (or Scotland)! So much fun to watch an old-fashioned movie with plot, good guys and bad guys, real-life situations and nary an art-house pretension. Instructive too, as it was “based on a true story,” although director Stephen Frears took plenty of license, as did Shakespeare […]
Willem Dafoe couldn’t leave because he was locked inside a billionaire architect’s apartment after an art theft went awry, but what was my excuse? The film’s premise discouraged any hope of a happy or good ending, but surely something interesting would happen? It turned out to be nothing more than a Greek/Belgian/German art-house production that, […]
In anticipation of tomorrow’s awards show I watched the five nominated Documentary Shorts and rate them as follows: The Martha Mitchell Effect. The only traditional historical documentary in the field, this was a refreshing recapitulation of the time the Attorney General’s wife captured the spotlight for herself, by speaking out to the press, calling Nixon […]
If swelling music, period bonnets and close-ups of Emma Mackey’s eyes are your thing, this movie is for you. The story, a fabricated version of Emily Bronte’s life, contains no surprises or clues as to her artistry, but it’s pleasant enough to go back in time to the English countryside. Although Emma Mackey was attractive […]
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