Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – 5
Not fun. Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman play characters that are so unremittingly unpleasant you almost don’t want them onscreen, and the usually reliable Jeremy Shamos is just as bad–that is, sickly fawning–in the other direction. The movie comes across as a play: e.g., stop the action while a character tells his life story. The […]
The Mangrove – 9
Exhilarating. The story combines George Floyd and the Chicago 7 in 1970 London, and I was stunned at the end to learn it was also based on a true story. Steve McQueen creates a foreign world–a community of Caribbean immigrants in Notting Hill–and populates it with people we believe in and come to care deeply […]
The Personal History of David Copperfield – 5
I have no idea what someone not familiar with the titular book would think of this scrapbook of moments culled from its pages, but maybe there isn’t such a one who would be watching. As it is, we are left to compare the movie’s impersonations of the memorable characters, from Uriah Heep to Mr. Micawber […]
The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart – 8
Everything you need to know about one of my favorite groups in less than two hours, this documentary was loving but not fawning, with samples of their best songs (out of the 1,000 they wrote). Archival footage was mixed in good proportion with current interviews, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the Greek-god looks […]
Dick Johnson Is Dead – 6
The punch line, of course, is that Dick Johnson isn’t dead in this loving documentary by his daughter Kirsten. She uses his growing dementia as an excuse to grapple with his inevitable end, in ways it might occur (but probably won’t), how it will affect people and where he will go (which he clearly won’t). […]