No boxing-movie-cliche goes unturned in this Rocky sequel, but the film is so genial and so devoid of any pretense of originality that you really don’t hold that against it. Stallone, especially, is so subdued – an actor with nothing to prove, probably more invested in his producing – that he’s good company onscreen. Michael B. […]
We’re living in Colm Toibin’s world at the moment – having finished Nora Roberts, reading The Master, now seeing Brooklyn – and what a sensitive and down-to-earth world it is! Characters are minutely observed, and the plot points are all everyday events. Here, all the everyday events happen to Saoirse Ronan’s Eilis, and the beauty of the film […]
An almost flawless movie that, more significantly, was important. It offered sympathy for victims of abuse and condemnation for the Catholic Church hierarchy, but most resonant for me was the plug for journalism. The Boston Globe reporters knocked on doors, used their contacts, pored through clips and records, went to court and trusted their instincts, […]
“A minor classic,” said one review, and this small film was perfect in its way. It captured a time and place – the Arabia of Lawrence – and above all, a culture. The plot unfolded slowly, through the eyes of a young boy (“Theeb”) who never left camera range. He had to figure out how […]
This one is all about acting and psychology: how do you feel about what each of the characters lives through, and how well do they portray it? Brie Larson is amazingly equable in a seemingly insupportable situation; when she cracks you’re only surprised it didn’t happen sooner. The kid plays a kid – he’s the […]
Yesterday we finished the musicals portion of our fall Broadway season, seeing in one week A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Something Rotten and Beautiful, a month after we saw Hamilton. Although criticism is something more than assigning grades, that is where I will start, with the above receiving, respectively, B-, A-, B […]
Just as Hollywood-perfect as The Martian, with great acting, fun story and scene-after-scene that brought tears to my eyes – except this story really happened. Bryan Cranston deserves Oscar consideration for his intense portrayal of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a hero presented with just enough flaws to avoid treacle. It’s also fun to see actors playing John […]
I look on this as a mood piece with a riveting score, maybe an homage to the Coens’ No Country for Old Men, with Benicio del Toro in the Javier Bardem role. Or it could be a domestic analogue to Zero Dark Thirty, with torture and extra-legal black ops producing the assassination of the Mexican drug kingpin. […]
How can you not root for Matt Damon – our generation’s Jimmy Stewart, as one critic said – as he struggles to survive for years all alone on Mars? And how can you not root for Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mackenzie Davis back in Houston. (Jeff Daniels is the resident prig, but how bad […]
A delightful road trip down to New Orleans with Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn, portraying, respectively, a natural winner and a born loser. The ending was not exactly what the story set us up for, but I won’t complain about a little fantasy. For all the gritty shots of Iowa, St. Louis and Memphis, this […]
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