Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
The Innocent – 8
A cleverly plotted, very funny crime caper peopled with delightfully idiosyncratic characters. Every moment is fun an the relationships are touching. Only in French cinema would the robbery target be a shipment of caviar.
Past Lives – 6.5
A sweet love story, although how sweet depends on one’s view of actress Greta Lee, whom I found more off-putting than charming. Maybe it’s a prejudice against Asian actresses (see Hong Chau in Showing Up and whoever was in Crazy Rich Asians and Everything Everywhere All At Once), but I missed the vulnerability of Julia Roberts, et al. […]
Vengeance – 6.5
A fun cross-cultural spoof, with a bright-lights New Yorker writer turning his trip to West Texas into a podcast, like he’s visiting a zoo, only to find that the animals can not only talk but have a lot on their minds. The lesson in self-awareness is less interesting than the characters he runs into, and if […]
Showing Up – 4
A textbook example of “slow cinema,” which features long takes and nothing happening, Showing Up does not much more than its title. Michelle Williams plays a joyless depressive from a dysfunctional family who jousts with an unpleasantly aggressive Hong Chau. The main plot point involves a pigeon, which for director Kelly Reichardt is a step down […]
Close to Vermeer – 8
A small movie, like the best Vermeer paintings, and if not a similar masterpiece, one that told a fun story with clarity and the borrowed beauty of all the Vermeers. Just showing close-ups of the paintings in the Rijksmuseum exhibition would have been worth the admission price, but beyond the final show were two subplots […]