Dir. David Fincher. Starring Gary Oldman, Sam Troughton, Tom Pelphrey Thank God it finally happened. It took until he was near sixty years old to get to this point, but there is no longer any way for us to understand David Fincher as a cool director. There’s a subspecies of movie guy for whom I… Read More Mank (2020)
Dir. Ben Wheatley. Starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas Few scenes have stayed with me so viscerally as one from A Field in England where, playing out in monstrous slow-motion, a scholar with his mind ravaged by some magical power emerges as a diving rod, eyes wild, tongue out, rope affixed to him. It… Read More Rebecca (2020)
Directed by Ol Parker. Starring Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan Eventually we get to “Dancing Queen.” This is the part where I would make a joke about “contractual obligations” or something, but for all I know there are contractual obligations which mandate that “Dancing Queen” is played at least once in any ABBA movie.… Read More Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)
Dir. Taika Waititi. Starring Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Scarlett Johansson From this Hollywood Reporter article listing some trivia about Jojo Rabbit after its Best Picture nomination, here’s Taika Waititi talking about what inspired him to make the picture: I wanted to tell a story about kids witnessing the behavior of grown-ups—especially during times of conflict and war—because I’ve… Read More Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Dir. Aaron Sorkin. Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Mark Rylance Spoilers for this recent release, but as ever for movies based off historical events, Wikipedia exists, so… I read seven or eight reviews of this movie before I had a chance to see it, but very few of them get further into David Dellinger… Read More The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)
Dir. Paul Dano. Starring Ed Oxenbould, Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal Few phrases give me the heebie-jeebies faster than “actor-turned-director.” not because I don’t think these people are capable—”a great artist can come from anywhere,” per Ratatouille—but because the track record is so depressingly flat. This is practically the Redford or Eastwood guarantee: the performances will… Read More Wildlife (2018)
Dir. Richard Attenborough. Starring Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Ryan O’Neal In that subgenre of war movies which has to do with soldiers in battle, there’s a moment I always look for and rarely find. An officer, typically a name-brand actor, tells subordinates to move ahead on a position knowing that doing so will get them… Read More A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Dir. Roy Del Ruth. Starring Eleanor Powell, Jack Benny, Robert Taylor I’m not usually a person who goes in for tedious humor, which is where a lot of the jokes in Broadway Melody of 1936 come from. Robert Wildhack is the movie’s primary vessel for this kind of joke, playing a man who is trying to… Read More Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)
Dir. Max Barbakow. Starring Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J.K. Simmons Seeing as this is a recent release, and I genuinely think you’re more likely to enjoy this one if you don’t know much about it going in, a wholehearted “spoiler alert!” So when you do a time loop movie and the action is more “romantic… Read More Palm Springs (2020)
Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke In the last six or seven years, the conversations about Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have turned. We’ve gone from “These two can’t act worth a crap” to “These are two of our best actors under thirty-five.” The impetus for that first part, of course,… Read More Twilight (2008)
Seeing Things Secondhand 