Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Far From the Madding Crowd – 7
There was no need to make Sgt. Troy look like an untrustworthy cad, with a mustache that drooped over his upper lip, supercilious eyes and foppish clothes. We knew, without that, that he nowhere the equal of the telegraphically named Gabriel Oak, but this was typical of the unsubtle approach of director Thomas Vinterberg […]
Still Alice – 8
A lovely movie, much less mawkish than commentators led me to believe (perhaps they considered Julianne Moore’s role too Oscar-obvious?). Julianne Moore was much of the reason, and her performance was touching without being pathetic. We felt for her but we were never uncomfortable in her presence. But if she was one-half the movie, the […]
Mr. Turner – 6.5
In this consistently bizarre portrait of the artist, we get no insight into J.M.W.Turner or his art. Instead, we get a character study of Timothy Spall as a grunting, lecherous, antisocial individual who walks as if his legs are stilts protruding from his hips. The movie is a montage of short vignettes, each cut short […]
Oscar Dud 2015
A big-winner favorite I didn’t like and a self-referential host who wasn’t funny were two of the reasons Oscar disappointed last night. As reported previously, my wife and I walked out of Birdman because we were having such a bad time. The absurdist magical-realism style never connected, and the characters, starting with Michael Keaton and […]
Villa Touma – 6.8
Maybe because there are three sisters, the blurb described this film from Israel as Chekhovian. In fact, it was as much Dickens or O’Henry – or whoever it was who wrote Cinderella. The plot is simple: an unwanted niece comes to live with her three aunts, remnants of a Christian community in Ramallah who exist […]