Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Battle of the Sexes – 8
What a relief, after seeing a trio of heavy, intellectual films at the New York Film Festival, to watch a thoroughly enjoyable, funny and teary, battle in which almost everyone is a winner, above all Billie Jean King. The movie is more about her complicated love life than her tennis, but there is enough historic […]
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat – 5
The artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is the hole at the middle of this documentary: we never hear his voice, don’t see his paintings, learn nothing of his background, and catch only fleeting glimpses of his face. Instead, we get talking heads remembering the days when he emerged on the Lower East Side scene. What the film […]
Zama – 6
Sort of a cross between Last Year at Marienbad and Aguirre, Wrath of God, this Argentine period drama offered memorable still images – loved that tricorner hat! – but not much continuity or sensible plot. Life was pretty crummy in Spanish South America, and I was happy to have a shower afterward. A bit of […]
Mother! – 5.5
An intense two hours of close-ups of a bewildered Jennifer Lawrence’s face, as she copes with a haunted house and situations beyond her control. It’s not a movie that makes much sense, but neither does a Hieronymous Bosch altarpiece. Javier Bardem is only slightly nicer than he was in No Country for Old Men, but […]
Step – 7.5
Although this film takes place in Baltimore, it might as well be another country, so foreign to my personal experience is the world it shows, starting with sport? competition? of “step,” which is sort of like synchronized swimmng on land. This is one of those heartwarming documentaries that gets lucky, as we follow a group […]