Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
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 […]
Oscar Nominations
With so many presumptive winners already in place, thanks to industry scuttlebutt and numerous awards from critics and industry groups, it is the nomination announcements that offer modest surprises and merit discussion. And with one movie, Oppenheimer, so clearly superior to the rest of the field, the Oscar ceremony itself will tend to boring; so […]
Nyad – 6.5
Recommended mainly for the performance by Annette Bening (so much better than Emma Stone’s), who created a character that neatly meshed with the archival footage of the eponymous marathon swimmer. The story of inhuman endurance was catnip for directors Chin/Vasarhelyi, after Meru, Free Solo and Rescue. Their problem here is that swimming from Cuba to Key […]