Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
The Dangerous Method – 7
Most interesting as a history lesson in the lives and characters of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, so I hope the screenwriters did their research. Top billing, however, went to Keira Knightley, who certainly did a lot of acting, although I could have done with less jaw-jutting as a sign of repressed tension. Fassbender, Mortenson […]
My Week with Marilyn – 7.9
A totally sweet story, conceived in innocence and told as such. There were no villains (just some buffoons), no tension or melodrama; every character was worth the time and every scene was fun to watch. Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench, as Laurence Olivier and Sybil Thorndike, reminded us what great actors the British are, and […]
Hugo – 7
A sumptuously beautiful film, but a beauty that had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with the hermetic world of the cinema. I suspect a true cinephile would have recognized an allusion in every character, every shot of Martin Scorsese’s homage to George Melies, silent film, and the French cinema. For the […]
The Descendants – 7
This George Clooney vehicle started slowly then gradually built to a moderate walk – an apt metaphor since the film had two scenes of Clooney running, something his agent should guard against. There were travelogue scenes of Hawaii and an unconvincing subplot about the disposal of a Hawaiian estate, but the film’s thrust was the […]
Take Shelter – 7
I barely noticed Jennifer Chastain in Tree of Life and scarcely recognized her in The Help, but by the time I caught on to her in Take Shelter I was blown away by her acting skills, by the empathy she communicated. Michael Shannon’s may be the more bravura performance – I have no idea how […]