Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Palm Springs – 4.5
A must-see for all Andy Samberg fans, not so much for anyone else. OK, Cristin Milioti is pretty good, too. But the rest – plot, setting, secondary characters – is pretty puerile, a bad takeoff on Groundhog Day. The movie lurches from gag to gag, with no direction home.
John Lewis: Good Trouble – 4
We watched this in homage to a great American the day after he died. As a documentary, it wasn’t much: familiar clips of the civil rights struggle–still shocking and heartbreaking–mixed with contemporary film of Lewis greeting and hugging well-wishers, with about a fifty-year hole in the middle. The only new piece for me was a […]
The Truth – 5
I have to admit I don’t know what this film was about, although Siri’s comparison to the previous film by Kore-eda, Shopkeepers, was apt: what constitutes a family. Ethan Hawke seemed to have stumbled in from Before Midnight, in which he was equally lost; the husband Pierre seemed left over from Boudu Saved from Drowning. […]
Hamilton – 7.5
First, let me say I thought the production for the screen was sensational. This was so much better than seeing the play on stage – although I admit when we saw it on Broadway early in its run our seats were far away and we couldn’t distinguish many of the lyrics. On the TV screen, […]
Da 5 Bloods – 7.5
A hit-and-miss affair from Spike Lee–nowhere as polished as BlackKklansman, but provocative in its looks at race, Vietnam, friendship, greed–remarkable in its aspirations if not its execution. First off, I should say that Delroy Lindo should be a lock for an Oscar nomination, at least, for his performance. Next best was having a range of […]