HOSTILES is a film that takes itself very seriously. It should. Taking as its themes both human nature’s capacity for violence and its overweening need for mercy, it is not something to be approached lightly, something that director Scott Cooper took to heart in his adaptation of the late Donald E. Stewart’s manuscript. Set in… Read More »
ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD
The rich, as the oft-quoted saw goes, are different. That is the central premise of ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, a cautionary tale of money and family. The moving force, though only a supporting player in the proceedings, J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer), who at one point reminisces about a book he wrote entitled… Read More »
JUSTICE LEAGUE
JUSTICE LEAGUE is a film with many problems. Some are inherent in an origin-style story that introduces several characters to what the filmmakers hope will be an audience eager to follow their further, individual, adventures. Some are just inexplicable. Take the plot device that is nothing short of asinine, and which I can’t discuss without… Read More »
LOVING VINCENT
The subjects of Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpieces come to startling, vivid, and enchanting life in LOVING VINCENT, a film of enormous beauty and sharp insight. Created by rotoscoping actors, and then painting each animation cell by hand in oils, the result is an immersive experience of how the artist saw the world while also questioning… Read More »
MOTHER!
From his debut feature, PI, Darren Aronofsky’s work has never strayed far from the metaphysical. There was the overt Kabbalah that infused NOAH, and even REQUIEM FOR A DREAM was as much about the psychic destruction of souls as it was about any physical degradation of the protagonists. And so it is with MOTHER!, an… Read More »
IT
The evil that lurks in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine, has nothing on the evil lurking in the homes of that community.
PILGRIMAGE
PILGRIMAGE tells a dour tale of faith and fanaticism. Set in 13th-century Ireland, it blends mysticism with realpolitik in a time and place so distant from ours that a subtext of imperialism might be almost too subtle, while the vicious commonplaces of summary justice, revenge, and casual violence are all too vivid A prologue set… Read More »
DUNKIRK
Spinoza once opined that you couldn’t use words to describe God, because by choosing any one or several, you would be eliminating the infinite nature of the deity. That essential inadequacy of words drives much of Christopher Nolan’s stunning film, DUNKIRK. Stunning in many sense of that word. Hence, we don’t learn that Tommy (Fionn… Read More »
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
There is something heartening in a sequel to a sequel that is as good as the original. Imagine how much more heartening it is that WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, the third in the trilogy that launched with the excellent DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and continued with the equally excellent… Read More »
MEGAN LEAVEY
There is nothing more endearing that the story of a dog and its loyal owner, and this is eminently the case with the fact-based MEGAN LEAVEY. Usually the stuff of sentiment of the most syrupy nature, these stories usually inhabit a special sub-genre of family-friendly flicks designed to reassure the intrinsic goodness of the family… Read More »
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