Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Till – 7
This was three things: a history lesson, a collection of fine roles for Black actors, and a bravura performance by Danielle Deadwyler as Emmett Till’s mother. The challenge was creating interest in a story that is already familiar–and not a pretty story, at that. For me, it explained why the case of Emmett Till, among […]
Devotion – 6
A buddy film about fighter pilots and their planes that had the bad timing to be released the same year as Top Gun: Maverick. Its only ace was the (true) story of its Black hero overcoming racial discrimination in the military during the Korean War. Curiously, however, Jesse Brown was portrayed by Jonathan Majors with a […]
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – 7
This is all Emma Corrin – and you certainly see all of Emma Corrin. She is gorgeous and affecting as a young woman consumed by her own sexuality. By contrast, the two men in her life are underdrawn, or poorly drawn; and the larger themes involving gender, class and society, that I expect are developed […]
The Fabelmans – 7.5
A portrait of the (cinema) artist as a young man, demonstrating the power of movies, even as we sat in a mostly empty theater. The story was sweet, if conventional, and well told, per usual for Stephen Spielberg. One wonders, though, how it would play if the viewer didn’t know beforehand that the story was […]
Causeway – 5
Talk about a slow movie, this one (on Netflix) practically came to a halt several times, until it finally did. Jennifer Lawrence was fine, and to her credit she didn’t affect a New Orleans accent; can’t say the same about Brian Tyree Henry, though, to the extent I could understand him. Beyond good work from […]