Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Sausage Party – 5
This was a feature-length cartoon put on by, as Mad Magazine used to boast, “the usual gang of idiots” – in this case, Seth Rogen, Josh Hill, Bill Hader, James Franco, Kristen Wiig, Paul Rudd, etc., etc. The conceit was cute, the jokes and language prurient, but there wasn’t much more here than in an […]
Sully – 8
A well-made movie about real people just doing their jobs – how rare and how nice! And oh, I cried the whole time, so there was plenty of drama and heroism. All along the way Clint Eastwood interjected tertiary characters in a way that humanized the story even more and added a light, often comic […]
Equity – 6.5
This film was doubly remarkable: 1) it based an adventure/crime thriller on an IPO; and 2) all the protagonists were women. Alysia Reiner was a more appealing Assistant U.S. Attorney than Anna Gunn’s investment banker, but both made more sense than Sarah Megan Thomas, whose role needed more filling out to be understandable. The men were […]
Elevator to the Gallows – 8
A wonderfully moody feature debut by the great Louis Malle from 1958, filmed in black-and-white – mostly black – with a perfectly adapted score by Miles Davis and sultry performances by Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet. The Hitchcockian tension begins with the opening shot and never lets up; the plot unfolds like a textbook tragedy […]
Hell or High Water – 7.7
This film takes place in the same country for old men made familiar by the Coen brothers’ classic, with a jowly Jeff Bridges reprising the role previously played by Tommy Lee Jones. Much less happens here, and that is the movie’s other strength – i.e., besides the gorgeously banal West Texas setting – its remarkable […]