Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
Baby Driver – 5.5
This seems to be the buzz-generator of early summer, but that speaks more to the paucity of good movies than BD’s merits. Anson Elgort’s moves and cool are appealing, and Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm are wonderfully scary bad guys, but that’s about it. The soundtrack is loud and unrelenting but doesn’t make much sense, […]
Beatriz at Dinner – 7.5
Fine acting by Salma Hayek and John Lithgow overcame a shaky plot premise to let us enjoy a roundelay of cleverly caricatured dinner guests. It is easy to read the movie as a parable of Democratic versus Republican values with an unfortunate ending, but the pleasures along the way were smaller, like hearing what cocktails […]
Wonder Woman 6
Silly fun, marred for me by a climactic battle that was befuddling, overlong and beyond absurd. Until then I could enjoy the comic-book characters, especially Chris Pine, and the cinematically familiar settings of World War I trenches, British cabinet meetings and German evil. Gal Gadot got better-looking as the movie progressed, which was good because […]
Beguiled – 7.5
A feminine thriller in full Southern Gothic mode, Sofia Coppola turns the cinematic tables with an almost all-female cast lusting in their separate ways for the hunky Union soldier dropped into their laps. Calling it a period piece is an understatement, as Coppola pulls out the beautiful dresses, the dripping Spanish moss, the candlelit chandeliers […]
Norman – 7.7
In the end, Norman the fixer’s dealmaking pays off for all his friends through his ultimate self-sacrifice, and he ironically achieves the goal of his nemesis, the Israeli Justice Department official, by doing something that makes the world a better place. Or, more likely, all the good things shown on screen are happening in Norman’s […]