Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
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. […]
Skipping the Festival
After five years of faithful attendance at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival I am prepared to let it pass me by this year. Part of the reason is the lackluster quality of the films I have seen the last two years. For several years, festival entries dotted, and even topped, my Top Ten lists; […]
Counselor – 5
I felt I was wallowing in a Vogue feature, every shot was oh-so-glamorous – and just as artificial. Nothing in the story computed, however. The “Counselor” was a cipher: there was no clue why Penelope Cruz loved him, why Javier Bardem or Brad Pitt befriended him, what he was doing in the movie or where […]