Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Frances Ha – 7
It all comes down to how much you enjoy the company of Greta Gerwig, and I found her quite pleasant. She is sufficiently attractive to be pleasant on the eyes, but not such a looker that she can’t play an “undatable.” Her insecurity and attempts to cope with her shortcomings are generally endearing, as we […]
Before Midnight – 3
Not since My Dinner With Andre have I watched two such uninteresting characters talk so self-indulgently, often in complete paragraphs, to so little purpose. Julie Delpy came across as real, albeit neurotic, but Ethan Hawke was unconvincing as a novelist, as an expatriate, and certainly as a dad. When you watch a young couple courting, […]
Hannah Arendt – 2.5
What is it with cigarettes and movies? Although smoking has not been a part of “the world I live in” for 40 years or more, 80% of the movies I see have a scene with a character who lights up. Is this the only way to tell us we are in the 1950s, or that […]
Post Tenebras Lux – 7.8
Compellingly strange or strangely compelling, this Mexican film at the Walker Art Center was like a puzzle without an answer that was still fun to do. Just as all paintings needn’t be realistic, not all movies need to make narrative sense. Here, one discrete scene followed another – some were past, some present, some imaginary […]
Caesar Must Die – 8
The power and brilliance of Shakespeare has never, for me, shone more brightly than in this semi-documentary of a prison production of Julias Caesar. Italian criminals brought a peculiar resonance to the depiction of Roman senators, and the fact that they looked like people I know (Richard Blake as Cassius?) made the message even more […]