Archive for category: Reviews

A skillfully made film that affirms one great value after another: the First Amendment, women’s equality, art over commerce, truth to power and on and on. The trouble is the movie is continually running up against history we know well, raising questions: wasn’t the Post’s story merely a sideshow to the New York Times’s? Not to mention Daniel Ellsberg’s? What did it matter if the Supreme Court was going to let the Times continue publishing in three more days, anyway? Did the Pentagon Papers really change many minds about the Vietnam War? What, really, was the legal threat facing the Post? (As a lawyer – and I could envision myself in my Time Inc. days playing the role of “Roger Black” – I don’t see how the Post could be deemed an “agent” of the New York Times, thus falling within the ambit of Judge Gurfein’s injunction, by relying upon the same source.) To the extent the movie’s core was about Kay Graham’s growth, I felt a bit cheated there, as well. I couldn’t see what led up to her sudden decisive direction to publish in the face of warnings from all her advisers and the uncharacteristic uncertainty of her formerly adamant editor. I suppose her conversation with McNamara was intended to provide this justification, but the way she asked, “What do you think, Fritz?” made me doubt that a newly backboned publisher had been born. I thought Streep was fine (no more, no less), Hanks was no Jason Robards and the fun was seeing how much the bit players were made to resemble the actual historical figures (Art Buchwald, Meg Greenfield, even Floyd Abrams). Then there were the Spielbergian touches – Graham descending the court steps through a phalanx of worshipful young females – that were corny and artificial but still made me cry.

A completely charming film by the master director Guillermo del Toro: every scene, every shot had visual beauty and plot significance. The caricature of 1950s America was comically dead-on, but not distracting – notably, Michael Shannon’s Dick and Jane family and Richard Jenkins’s Norman Rockwell art. Shannon was wonderfully evil, Octavia Spencer provided her usual semi-comic relief, and Sally Hawkins was Oscar-worthy in the difficult role of playing sweet, empathetic and fearful (and fully nude), all without speaking. The ultimate compliment may be this: while I judged various aspects of the film for its realism, it never occurred to me to question the Amazonian amphibian, the “asset,” that was at the center of the movie. Like a magician, del Toro diverted the viewer’s attention from his trick and made his fantasy world seem real and alive.

An enchanting story, beautifully told. Who could resist watching this “comely miss,” Jane Goodall, clambering through the Tanzanian jungle in safari shorts, to be rewarded by acceptance from a troop of colorful chimpanzees. There is drama and action to match Planet of the Apes and a bittersweet love story with the dreamboat photographer sent to record Jane’s discoveries and personal appeal. The wildlife of Africa, seen in both micro- and macro- views, provides stunning punctuation throughout. In these times of trouble, which certainly extend to Africa, how pleasant it is to encounter a story where good is done and determination is rewarded. My choice for the Oscars.

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 by then we’d been won over, so it hardly mattered.