Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
The Help – 8
A rare old-fashioned well-made film, with good guys, bad guys, a plot, fine acting, a bit of history, local color and a satisfying ending. This is sure-fire Oscar bait, although with so many deserving actresses – in order, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone and Jessica Chastain – it’s hard to know who will get […]
The Names of Love – 5
A bit of lightweight fluff, athough there may have been serious undercurrents lurking, as suggested more by the title in French, Les Noms des Gens, as in, what’s in a name?, or who is really French? The biggest revelation may have been how unerotic full-frontal nudity of a beautiful woman could be, as Sara Forestier […]
Crazy, Stupid Love – 6
One wonders how good a movie this could have been with a real actor instead of Steve Carrell in the lead role, but since he was the movie’s executive producer that wasn’t going to happen. As a result, you had Julianne Moore going through a kaleidoscope of facial expressions, showing real hurt, confusion, and longing, […]
Friends With Benefits – 3
This was about as real as a $3 bill. Aside from Jenna Elfman, I can think of no character or scene that could exist outside the hackneyed imagination of a fledgling Hollywood sitcom writer. And as for the buzz that Justin Timberlake can act, don’t believe that, either.
Page One – 6
Even Impressionist paintings have a subject, but this collection of vignettes about the New York Times went all over the place. Was this film about how the Times now covers the media? about the Times’s uneasy relationship with new media? about the troubling economics of print journalism? how a story – e.g., the rise of […]