Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Emilia Perez – 8
An audacious petit-opera from director Jacques Audiard, with four leading ladies, engaging singing and a message about human potential. All this in a setting reminiscent of Narcos. Zoe Saldana is winning awards, Selena Gomez is terrific, but it is Karla Sofia Gascon that does the real acting. The story has improbabilities, like every opera, but the […]
Lee – 4
There is more nicotine than subtlety in this retrospective recounting of Lee Miller’s career as a wartime photographer. When every scene is high drama, none are. Kate Winslet trundles from one confrontation to another with enough overacting expressiveness to make Ralph Fiennes in Conclave seem restrained. But worst, probably, is that her character is neither sympathetic […]
Dahomey – 7
A meditation/symposium on the subject of art repatriation, in this case from France’s Musee du Quai Branly to the Republic of Benin, not to be confused with the Kingdom of Benin from which the British looted art in 1897, five years after the French appropriated the objects at issue here from the Kingdom of Dahomey […]
Blitz – 6
Steve McQueen is an admirable writer-director of historical race-based dramas, and this film. is no exception. Unfortunately, it is easier to admire than to connect with, as bland characters and an unfocused story don’t measure up to the special effects and crowd scenes of London in the blitz. Young George reenacts “Lassie Come Home,” but […]
A Real Pain – 7.8
Writer/director/actor Jesse Eisenberg has crafted a charming short story of two cousins on a Holocaust tour of Poland, not a minute too long or too short. Unfortunately for one’s viewing pleasure, Kieran Culkin’s neurotic, or “unfiltered,” character is a real pain, albeit not the one alluded to in the film’s title (or is it?). Hearing […]