Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Zone of Interest – 9
Disquieting, thought-provoking, beautifully filmed and acted. “Is this what it was really like?,” is only the first of many questions. How would the revelation that this was Auschwitz have hit us if we hadn’t known ahead of time, from the reviews? How did German actors feel about portraying their history as told by a British […]
Taste of Things – 5
A paean to French cuisine, featuring a cast straight out of 19th-century paintings by Fantin-Latour, Manet, Caillebotte, Cezanne, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec (you get the picture). Unfortunately, it is as devoid of plot as any film I can remember. Identifying ingredients and cooking methods can only go so far, and when another meal starts it’s time to […]
The Promised Land – 6
A Danish version of Shane, without the subtlety. There wasn’t a character, plot development or scene that offered any surprise. Mads Mikkelsen is a pleasure to watch, but he joined the class of Joaquin Phoenix and Adam Driver for fewest facial expressions in a role. I couldn’t count the number of movie cliches that piled atop […]
Society of the Snow – NR
I couldn’t get past the horrible dubbing of the Netflix version to give this a serious viewing. The subject did not appeal to me, hence I avoided it in the theater, and the hokey, inauthentic English-language dialogue left me, so to speak, cold.
The Teachers’ Lounge – 8
A sweetly intense performance by Leonie Benesch as a new sixth-grade teacher having a bad week at school. I couldn’t figure out how the various conflicts would get resolved, and felt better when the director couldn’t either. In the meantime, though, there were memorable characters and dilemmas that made you think in this worthy Oscar […]