Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
The Painter and the Thief – 3
This documentary is sort of like Normal People, except the people are unattractive, uninteresting, inarticulate and not erotically charged. Barbora is a better painter than interviewer and it’s never clear what she’s looking for or finding in Bertil, who was so drugged he can’t remember why he stole her painting or what he did with […]
Lost Girls – 8
What a relief, after watching soaps that have no ending (most recently, The Restaurant), to watch a 90-minute movie that has a premise and characters, develops them, builds dramatically and has a resolution – even if, as the opening credit warns us, it’s an “unsolved” mystery. Amy Ryan is sensational as the obsessed, albeit very […]
Sanditon – 8
Much of the charm is supplied by the charming Rose Williams’s expressive face, voluptuous body and bottomless pit of dresses, which materialize out of the blue. The rest comes from the smoky Theo James as Sidney Parker, the love/hate cynosure of Rose’s Charlotte. We get to know a dozen other denizens of, and visitors to, […]
Never Rarely Sometimes Always – 7
Planned Parenthood is the unsung hero of this wrenching story of 17-year-old Autumn Callahan, pregnant in Pennsylvania, who goes to New York City for an abortion. Sidney Flanigan plays Autumn as an awkward, affectless teen whose idea of conversation is “Whatever.” Her cousin who accompanies her has a bit more spirit, but there is a […]
Once Were Brothers – 4.5
Robbie Robertson may be a great musician, but as a documentary narrator he is ponderous. As in Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, the story of a five-man band suffers from being told solely from one member’s perspective. Performance clips breathe some life into the film, but with only one great song to The Band’s credit, […]