“An Education,” 10 July 2010 (2009), DVD. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a 16-yo precociously sophisticated and adept English school girl preparing for her A-levels. She’s from an uptight, climbing, conventional lower middle class family in an early ‘60s London suburb, when she and her family (including a marvelous turn by Alfred Molina as her foolish…
Film Stars Don’t Die in LIverpool
“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” (2017) July 6, 2018, DVD, home. Most folks seem rather down on this well done and very interesting look at the life and death of Gloria Grahame, an American starlet/actress and Oscar winner from the noir period, whose career declined in her later years along with her…
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” (2017) July 6, 2018, DVD, home. Most folks seem rather down on this well done and very interesting look at the life and death of Gloria Grahame, an American starlet/actress and Oscar winner from the noir period, whose career declined in her later years along with her four marriages…
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” June 29, 2018, theater. Fred Rogers and his neighborhood are the subject of this loving study of Mr. Rogers. I am probably the only person in America who never watched his show as an adult with a child. The closest I came was Eddy Murphy’s brilliant ghetto satire…
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
“The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography,” June 21, 2018 (2016), DVD (home). When I think of Errol Morris, I think “Thin Blue Line,” “Fog of War,” or “Unknown Known.” I think of “A Brief History of Time” about Stephen Hawking’s work (not my favorite, I must admit). But these are intense pieces that look at…
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
June 20, 2018 (2016), DVD. When I think of Errol Morris, I think “Thin Blue Line,” “Fog of War,” or “Unknown Known” I think of “A Brief History of Time” about Stephen Hawking’s work (not my favorite, I must admit) But these are intense pieces that look at major issues in our body politic and…
The Florida Project
“Florida Project,” (2017) June 20, 2018, DVD, home. Sean Baker’s (co-writer, director, editor) excellent film focuses on the hidden homeless warehoused in the cheap motels just outside Disney’s ever-joyous Magic Kingdom. Theirs is a community of the marginal poor, one step away from the street itself, struggling to survive in the insanely purple Magic Castle…
RBG
“RBG,” documentary, June 15, 2018, theater. I was quite captivated by, and more than a little scared of, Notorious RBG after seeing this very well done and moving film. Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an intense, thoughtful jurist whose commitment to using law as a vehicle to enable equality of opportunity, is a…
Ocean’s Eight
“Ocean’s 8,” June 2018, theater. I liked “Ocean’s 11” a lot, enjoyed “Ocean’s 12,” and was bored by “Ocean’s 13.” This one is an all-female crew headed by Sandra Bullock as Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie and Kate Blanchett as her friend Lou lead their own gang to conduct a massive jewelry heist. Co-starring Anne Hathaway…
Lucky
“Lucky,” May 9, 2018 (2017), DVD, home. This was a wonderful way for Harry Dean Stanton to go out as an actor, and he knew it. It was clearly a love letter to and also about him. Set in the desert somewhere, Stanton plays Lucky, a WWII Navy vet who served on LSTs at…
Syriana
“Syriana,” April 10, 2006 (2005), airplane from Bahrain (how apt as it appears to be almost about Bahrain itself). George Clooney et.al., screw up the Middle East in this muddled look at CIA duplicity, American manipulation, oil company power, and the seeming futility of ‘good rulers’ trying to change the game. It’s rather confused but…
Loving Vincent
“Loving Vincent,” (2017) March 17, 2018, on plane. This Oscar-nominated treat merges wonderful black-and-white visuals of human actors with incredibly creative animation featuring the artwork in Van Gogh’s style of 200 artists who hand painted each animated frame. This is a fine visual piece that chronicles the last days of Vincent Van Gogh and offers…
A Fantastic Woman
“A Fantastic Woman,” (2017) March 11, 2018 (2017), theater, Chilean, in Spanish with subtitles, Best Foreign Language Oscar, 2017. Sebastian Lelio’s film stars Daniela Vega (a trans-woman brought in as a consultant who was then asked to do the role) as Marina, a trans-woman waitress, cabaret singer, and classical lyricist, whose older partner, Orlando, suddenly…
Phantom Thread
“Phantom Thread,” February 15 2018 (2017), theater. Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis in what he’s said will be his last film role) is an haute couturier in 1950s London in this incredibly lush and perverse film from Paul Thomas Anderson. He’s utterly devoted to his craft and relies on a muse. His last has played…
Futureworld
“Futureworld,” February 15, 2018 (1976), DVD in St. Paul on computer. Chuck (Peter Fonda) and Tracy (Blythe Danner) star as reporters, he’s print’s Woodward to her TV Barbara Walters, in this sequel to “Westworld”. He smells a rat in this new, elite robot resort Delos after the disaster of “Westworld;” she wants a big interview….
The Shape of Water
“The Shape of Water,” February 11, 2018 (2017), theater. Written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, this is an exhilarating political sci-fi thriller that includes homages to spy cinema and monsters (Creature from the Black Lagoon). It is, hands down, the best film from 2017 that I’ve had the pleasure to see. It’s also a…
Stronger
“Stronger,” February 10, 2018 (2017), DVD in St. Paul on computer. Costco chicken cooker Jeff Bauman (an excellent and balanced Jake Gyllenhal, who also co-produced). was waiting at the Boston Marathon finish line in 2013 when the bombs went off and took both his legs above the knee. He was there to root…
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing
December 27, 2017, (2017) theater. Seeing the trailer and reading a few of the glowing reviews, I was totally jazzed to see this Martin McDonagh (writer/director) film The acting definitely is the highpoint of the trip: Francis McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Clark Peters, Lucas Hedges, and Peter Dinklage stand out among an excellent cast…
I’m So Excited!
“I’m So Excited!,” December 26, 2017 (2013), DVD, home. I’m not. Tiny cameos by Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz (the best part of the film) at the beginning can’t come close to salvaging this stupid farcical, comic, mishmash. A plane flying from Spain to NYC has a jammed landing gear. What to do as they…
The Man Who Knew Infinity
“The Man Who Knew Infinity,” December 17 2017 (2015), DVD, home. This biopic stars Dev Patel as S Ramanugan, the brilliant, self-taught Indian mathematician, and Jeremy Irons as GH Hardy, the Cambridge math don he worked with during the years preceding and during WWI. Leaving his young wife at home in India, he sought to…
The Wizard of Lies
“The Wizard of Lies,” December 17, 2017 (2017), HBO release, DVD (on the road). Robert De Niro stars in this Barry Levnison study of Bernie Madoff, whose 50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme rocked investors during the collapse of the housing/stock/derivatives markets in 2007/8. Michelle Pfeiffer’s wife Ruth brings appropriate selfishness, narcissism, and fragility into focus;…
Crossing Delancey
“Crossing Delancey,” December 15, 2017 (1988), DVD, (on the road. ) Not surprisingly, this feels more like an old play, as Susan Sandler wrote both the play and screenplay while Joan Silver directed in 1988. A very different time and place for heterosexual trysts. Isabelle Grossman (Amy Irving) arranges author readings and soirees…
Patti Cake$
“Patti Cake$,” December 10, 2017, DVD, home. There were more than a few times when I expected a very young Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky” to emerge on the stage and spit some lines along with our heroine, Patti Dumbrowski, aka, “Killer P” (a wonderful Danielle Macdonald—and Australian no less!). The story lines by writer-director…
Wind River
“Wind River,” December 9, 2017, DVD, home. The harsh winter environment shares the leading actor role in this story of assault and (in)justice on Native American reservations Based on actual incidents, this looks at a story that is systematically ignored throughout America, the abuse and disappearance of Native American women. Jeremy Renner stars as…
A Quiet Passion
“A Quiet Passion,” December 8, 2017 (2017), DVD, home. Cynthia Nixon is remarkable (Oscar nomination-worthy) in this fictionalized biopic about the life of Emily Dickinson written and directed by Terrence Davies He consciously blends fictional narrative with fact to construct his vision of Dickinson, the great 19th Century American poetess who worked and…