Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Ferrari – 3.5
This is Napoleon for the racing-car world. Adam Driver gives a joyless impersonation of Enzo Ferrari that is the lugubrious equal of Joaquin Phoenix’s leaden Corsican. Penelope Cruz provides the only glimmer of life, as did Vanessa Kirby, playing the feisty but disgruntled and left-behind wife. The car-racing scenes recall the violence and senseless deaths […]
Wonka – 5
I think this Timothee Chalamet is going to be a star! The plot is beyond absurd, but the production values are excellent and the six-year-old with me was enthralled. (Then again it was only her second movie.) Calah Lane (Noodle) was a charmer, and the three minutes with Sally Hawkins gave me more pleasure than […]
Fallen Leaves – 8.5
Spare. Simple. Sweet. Director Aki Kaurismaki’s visual vocabulary sets the mood: images are planar, geometric, frill-less, close-up, held still. There is no recession into space until the final shot. The world is bleak: colors are drab, jobs are mundane, the outside world, via radio, is death in Ukraine. The supporting cast are notably unattractive–overweight, dour, […]
May December – 8
Suspense builds nicely as a TV star played by Natalie Portman, doing research for an upcoming film, visits the home of a former school teacher, played by Julianne Moore, who after an affair with a 13-year-old student followed by childbirth, incarceration and marriage is living unhappily ever after in their Savannah home. As the teacher-student […]
Immediate Family – 7
A pleasant, if somewhat self-congratulatory, profile of the four studio musicians who seemingly played on every memorable singer-songwriter album of the ’70s. It also served, incidentally or not, as a promotional piece for their later-in-life tour, appearing at the Lobero on February 14. I don’t know enough to judge the musical chops the film showed, […]