Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Promised Land; Not Fade Away
I caught up with two movies that had escaped me when I flew to and from New York after Thanksgiving. Both were fine airplane movies, largely because they had subjects of inherent interest to me: fracking and rock’n’roll. The former featured star turns by Matt Damon and Frances McDormand, excellent as always, and nice support […]
Captain Phillips – 8.4
A remarkable film that involved me intellectually and emotionally from start to finish. Director Paul Greengrass set up an equality between the American captain and the Somali pirate at the outset, by showing both men leaving family and embarking on their collision course. Muse, in an Oscar-worthy supporting role, was never a bad guy: every […]
Wadjda – 7.8
A sweet film about one spunky girl’s efforts to break through the repression of women in Saudi Arabia. By making her statement an attempt to acquire, and ride, a bicycle, the director kept the rebellion personal, low-key, understandable and touching. And by making the repressers women, not men, there weren’t villains to root against, just […]
12 Years a Slave – 8
Potent, powerful, punishing – it is hard to imagine a film that could better capture the human misery of slavery in America. Everyone acts their appointed role in this tableau, although I didn’t quite understand what Brad Pitt was doing on the scene. Once the black man is considered chattel, rather than humanity, all else […]
Blue is the Warmest Color – 8
Swann in Love is a minutely detailed account of a love affair, focusing entirely on Swann’s feelings, day by day, every moment of longing, pleasure, and above all, jealousy. Nothing really happens; there is no climax or denouement; it is just a portrait, of Swann in love, and how that love affects and changes him. […]