Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Queen to Play – 6
A trifle, although being French and filmed on Corsica, it was not without interest. The basic premise was absurd – an uneducated chambermaid goes from nothing to chess champion in a few months, and remains beautiful while staying up to practice all night and holding down two jobs during the day. Then there is the […]
Cedar Rapids – 7.9
“Cute,” was the word I heard most often from the decidedly older crowd leaving the Friday night $3 movies at the Hopkins Cinema, and that struck me as just about perfect. Like an Adam Sandler movie, it was sweet-spirited, with the bad guys not really being bad, just pompous. Sure, no one could be as […]
The New World (2005) –
I feel I should approach this more as an opera, or a symphony, than a movie. Fugue and elegiac are the first words that come to mind, although I am not sure of their meaning. The wide screen at the Walker was filled with image after image taken from a Bierstadt painting, or in the […]
Bill Cunningham’s New York – 5
New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham is shown to be a charmingly idiosyncratic individual, and it is amazing that he can put together two very different pages of the Sunday Style section each week, apparently without a digital camera or motorized transportation. The movie itself skirts with some larger issues but largely avoids them […]
Meek’s Cutoff – 6
This was a truly “independent” film, in which none of the usual movie rules applied. For long stretches it was so “real” that it seemed lifeless. Except for Michelle Williams, recognizable even clothed head to foot, no effort was made to explain, or particularly distinguish, any of the characters. The Indian looked like someone from Milwaukee who […]