It would be great if we didn’t have to spend so much time talking about extra-textual stuff before diving into the Fantastic Beasts movies.…
Compartment No. 6 **
Like Planes, Trains & Automobiles, this drama is built around a reluctantly-shared journey between a tightly-wound protagonist and boisterous traveling companion where...
Cheaper By the Dozen *1/2
I’m certain that the creative team of this latest adaptation of the 1948 book—director Gail Lerner and screenwriters Kenya Barris & Jennifer Rice-Genzuk, all...
If you follow the world of movies and television at all, you’re certainly familiar with the concept of the “gritty reboot.” It’s become something of a cliché in recent years, this notion...
Blacklight **
We could quibble over precisely how many of Liam Neeson’s roles over the past decade constitute him going back to the “very particular set of skills”/grizzled-badass routine,...
Living ***1/2
Kazuo Ishiguro might have been the perfect choice to adapt Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Ikiru—not just because of his toehold in both Japanese and British cultures, but because...
After Yang ***1/2
Kogonada’s 2017 debut feature Columbus was a masterful example of finding profound emotion in quiet, restrained filmmaking; his follow-up, adapting a short story by Alexander...
The 355 **1/2
The title—a reference to a never-identified Revolutionary War-era female spy—may be meant to honor all the women in the history of espionage, but the movie itself feels more...
The Tragedy of Macbeth ***
Cinematic Shakespeare adaptations face a whole mess of unique challenges: comparisons with previous adaptations of the same material; questions of what a cinematic...
American Underdog **
There’s a level on which movies like American Underdog are some of the hardest movies to write about, because while it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do,...
At the annual meeting of the Utah Film Critics Association, The Power of the Dog took Best Picture honors along with three other awards, leading a wide-ranging list of winners.…
Being the Ricardos **
The oeuvre of Aaron Sorkin will forever be a test of how much his skill with tart dialogue can balance his penchant for taking himself way too seriously. Like last...
All the 1984 films I've seen, from best to worst.
Amadeus This Is Spinal Tap Blood Simple Once Upon a Time in America The Killing Fields Love Streams The Wannsee Conference Ghostbusters...
TENDER MERCIES (Bruce Beresford, USA, 1983, 9)
Robert Duvall was in person to introduce the film (and his THE APOSTLE, which I didn’t see) at the 2006 Virginia Film Festival. After entering the...
Benedetta ***
See feature review. Available Dec. 3 in theaters and via VOD. (NR)
Encounter ***
An Invasion of the Body Snatchers premise gets an interesting twist in a psychological...
BELFAST (Kenneth Branagh, Britain, 2021) 6
I am about five years younger than Kenneth Branagh and was raised less than 150 miles from Belfast in a city divided (if less vigorously and violently) between...
THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion, USA, 2021, 4)
Jonny Greenwood’s sharp and stabbing score is great, the vistas are both gorgeous and foreboding, the piano-banjo duet scene has 10 Skandies points...
NOMADLAND (Chloe Zhao, USA, 2020) 3
... and it’d’ve been even lower were it not for Strathairn, Swanky, the guy at the end whose son killed himself and other small character bits. My inner Marxist...
Ghostbusters: Afterlife **
I wish I could understand the thought process that emerged when somebody said “Let’s make another Ghostbusters movie,” and somebody then said, “Okay …...
THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE QUIET (Ana Katz, Argentina, 2021) 8 V
Alfred Hitchcock said he couldn’t work with Ingrid Bergman after the late-1940s because she only wanted grand roles like Joan of Arc...
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