Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Anomalisa – 7.5
One weird movie that either speaks to the universal human condition (in stop-action animation) or is a Rorschach blot to engage in how you will. Then there are those mask-faces with detachable parts. Or the voices that are all the same, except for Michael and Lisa. A movie doesn’t have to make sense to move […]
Alex and Eve – 5
Harmless piffle for the schmaltz-inclined. Originality: zero. Subtlety: zero. Believable characters: zero. Surprises: zero. But as I said, it won’t hurt you, unless you’re overly sensitive to caricatures and stereotypes, in this case Greeks and Lebanese. Others loved it; I found it silly.
45 Years – 7
Here’s an answer to the question, Why don’t they make movies about real people? Because not much happens in their lives and it’s hard to understand them talking. This entire movie hinged on the wife (Charlotte Rampling)’s discovery that her husband (Tom Courtenay) had never gotten over his prior lover. But since we didn’t see […]
The Revenant – 4
An absurd story with terrible acting (Domnhall Gleeson especially, but I could name others), with lots of violence and gore and amazing cinematography. You wonder first, how they could have shot this, and then second, why bother? Leonardo DiCaprio’s escapes from death were so unbelievable that they had no emotional impact. As for the dialogue […]
Joy – 5
This movie was a test of your appetite for Jennifer Lawrence and her hairstyles: I loved her going in but had seen quite enough by the end. My Robert DeNiro fuse was quite a bit shorter and was exhausted almost from the start: his comic persona didn’t fit a character that wasn’t actually funny. Once […]