Archive for category: Reviews

Pure catnip: an Aaron Sorkin drama with pithy dialogue, clearly drawn characters, a hopefully moral universe and a healthy dose of politics, past and present. Being in my personal revisit-Vietnam moment helped. Having just watched Platoon, the Ken Burns 10-part documentary, Da 5 Bloods and having read Oliver Stone’s and Randy Hobler’s memoirs, this moment of history didn’t seem so distant. The all-star cast was just that: all-star. Sacha Baron Cohen and Jeremy Strong were brilliant, and great fun, as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. The one weak link was Eddie Redmayne, an Englishman miscast as Tom Hayden. Conversely, the most brilliant performance was by another Brit: Mark Rylance’s performance as William Kunstler. The echoes with 2020–street protests and a repressive government–made the story all the more compelling.

A thoroughly enjoyable musical biography of Gordon Lightfoot, with a Canadian viewpoint and tone. The title song alone was achievement enough for a lifetime, but Lightfoot’s career extended through two eras – the folk rock of the ’60s and singer-songwriter era of the ’70s – both fertile periods with wonderful memories to revive. Practically every recognizable Canadian folk or rock singer opined or appeared (plus, inexplicably, Alec Baldwin), which balanced the autobiographical comments of Gord himself, looking much older than 80. I liked his music when it appeared; I guess I didn’t realize, however, just how good it was.

It is a pleasure to enter the lush world of the French Riviera, albeit on the small TV screen, and to return to the world of French (Belgian) cinema, where the “action” is a series of conversations, with some (large) bare breasts thrown in. I was somehow reminded of Proust by this story of an innocent 16-year-old, a summer at the beach, observing and learning about sex and society. We get to know four people, and that’s enough.

Wonderful performances by Jamie Foxx, Michael Jordan and Brie Larson make this a pleasure to watch. Even not having read the book, there were no surprises, and if the story were not true you’d criticize the screenwriter for a lack of imagination. But what’s wrong with a happy ending that makes you cry? And events since this movie came out in 2019 have only made the depicted injustices against Black lives more credible and relevant.

We watched this in homage to a great American the day after he died. As a documentary, it wasn’t much: familiar clips of the civil rights struggle–still shocking and heartbreaking–mixed with contemporary film of Lewis greeting and hugging well-wishers, with about a fifty-year hole in the middle. The only new piece for me was a reference to his first race for Congress against Julian Bond, in which Bond expressed seemingly sincere disappointment at Lewis’s less than honorable campaign. The sole negative note in 90 minutes, I wish it would have been explained or explored some more, along with some of Lewis’s battles and stands during his Congressional career. The definitive film about John Lewis is yet to be made.