Archive for category: Spotlight

For an action movie directed at the short-attention-span generation, this was one slow film. Every scene between fights dragged on; as for the predictable fights, they were without visceral emotion and internal logic, as was the rest of the film. Deep looks of concern and longing mainly recalled their comic book source. The ending was one long hint of a sequel to come, which I will be glad to avoid. On the plus side, I was happy to see Richard Schiff and Julia Louis-Dreyfus representing the White establishment, and Wakanda gets my Oscar vote for costume design.

This was three things: a history lesson, a collection of fine roles for Black actors, and a bravura performance by Danielle Deadwyler as Emmett Till’s mother. The challenge was creating interest in a story that is already familiar–and not a pretty story, at that. For me, it explained why the case of Emmett Till, among all the anti-Black atrocities in the South, resonated so loud and long. Deadwyler deserves an Oscar nod for all her emotional nuance, even if it went on a bit long. The movie’s weak spot was its characterization of Emmett (“Bobo”) as a clueless and fairly unsympathetic Momma’s boy, not that he deserved his fate. Ultimately, good or bad, you felt you were in history class more than the movies, and left to wonder: as this is the version that will live in the public’s imagination, how true is it?

Absurdly stupid or stupidly absurd, take your pick. Whereas the original Knives Out revolved around a relatable family with understandable issues, this “sequel” featured an all-star cast of incredible (as in, non-credible) characters who formed no sort of family and were hard to care about, if not actually odious. And whereas the Daniel Craig character, as I remember it, was an amusing add-on, here he was the main player, wearing out his schtick not too far into the film. The plot echoes of The Menu were just an unhappy coincidence.

Call me stonehearted, but I wasn’t touched by Mrs. Harris or her story. The good guys were too sweet, the bad guys too ugly and nothing met the plausibility test. Individually, however, the characters were charming, especially Natasha, and the clothes were almost worth the price of admission.

I fear for the movies, when this is counted as the major release for the month, and the four trailers previewed are all for horror films that seemingly favor special effects over real people or situations. A thriller(?) depending upon an alien spaceship is especially hard to take seriously at the same time we are seeing images of the cosmos from the Webb telescope, but Daniel Kaluuya as a Hollywood horse wrangler didn’t make much sense from scene one. If there was a point to the movie, anywhere, I couldn’t find it. I liked the inflatable tube men, but that was about it.