Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Loving – 7.5
The election of Donald Trump has infected so much of my outlook it is not surprising that it dampened my enthusiasm for Loving, which would otherwise have been a hopeful, inspiring story of two regular people and a couple of young ACLU lawyers bringing down Virginia’s hateful anti-miscegenation law. Just look at how backward and racist […]
Arrival – 7
The whole movie begs for explanations and answers: who are these aliens, what do they want, how do they communicate, how will humans understand them, and can humans cooperate when faced with a crisis? It is, therefore, a bit of a disappointment when none of these questions are satisfactorily answered – not that there could […]
Mifune: The Last Samurai – 5
Good fun to be reminded of Toshiro Mifune’s roles, especially in Kurosawa classics, and get some sense of what made him a star. Otherwise, there was nothing particularly compelling or unique about this documentary.
Eagle Huntress – 5
The story, and the telling, were too pat for a documentary: more often than not, it seemed like scenes were being staged for the camera, rather than that the camera happened to be there. The affectlessness of Aishorplan, the 13-year starlet, didn’t add to the convincing. But I can never get too much of those […]
Moonlight – 6
Certainly an interesting movie covering a subject not often seen in movies and brand-new actors, but it was long and slow and not a lot of fun to watch. The main character(s) were quiet, repressed, not attractive in physical appearance or choice of lifestyle (i.e., drug-dealing). There wasn’t much of a story – just three […]