Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more
Andrew Haigh’s 2015 film 45 Years is a fantastic film. Quietly fascinating, it dissects a seemingly mundane 45-year marriage at a pivotal point of fracture. His latest film, Lean on Pete, has shades of this. It travels with a 16-year old boy named Charley (Charlie Plummer) at a crucial period of adversity.
Both Pete and Years watch as the notion of quaint compassion becomes strained to the point of near collapse. Both have a genuine sense of Continue reading Lean on Pete (2018) Movie Review
Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here doesn’t concern itself with much plot. It doesn’t concern itself with much of anything in regards to narrative, as a matter of fact.
What it does concern itself with is Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), a hired hitman who is tasked with recovering the kidnapped daughter (Ekaterina Samsonov) of a New York Senator (Alex Manette). Mainly, it is concerned with Joe’s means of coping with his present job and his rocky past.
We first see Joe through a mask of plastic. The material slowly crinkles inward and then
Continue reading You Were Never Really Here (2018) Movie Review
Bjorn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) is the number one ranked tennis player in the world. The only thing between him and winning a fifth straight Wimbledon is American John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf). McEnroe is an outspoken, emotional player who doesn’t follow the decorum of the sport.
Borg, on the other hand, is soft-spoken. He lacks emotion. He is very particular about his play and his fame, which he actively avoids. He is the apparent antithesis of McEnroe in almost every respect. Except, of course, that they both Continue reading Borg vs. McEnroe (2018) Movie Review
Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm) is a negotiator. In 1972, he works for the U.S. government in Beirut. At a dinner party, he sums up the situation in Lebanon by calling the country a “boarding house without a landlord” that was thrown into confusion when the Palestinians “moved in.”
He continues talking in this politically-savvy way, as if he understands that the country is headed toward civil war. When he is brought back to Beirut 10 years later, however, he seems surprised at what he sees when he touches down.
In 1972, at the aforementioned dinner party, a person close to him is killed in the crossfire of a shootout. In 1982, Skiles is tasked with Continue reading Beirut (2018) Movie Review
Marlo (Charlize Theron) is about to give birth to her third child. One of her other children, Jonah (Asher Miles Fallica), acts out, causing Marlo problems at home and at Jonah’s school. He is described as “quirky,” a word that ultimately means little and does nothing to ease Marlo’s troubles.
Marlo’s husband Drew (Ron Livingston) continues working when Marlo goes on paternity leave (which she begins just three days before her due date). When he comes home, he helps the kids with their homework and then disappears behind a video game controller and headset. All the while, Marlo is Continue reading Tully (2018) Movie Review
The main conversation surrounding Chappaquiddick, the drama from John Curran detailing the events following the drunk driving accident perpetrated by Ted Kennedy that cost Robert Kennedy campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne her life, is a political one. A political film breeding political conversation; the equation makes sense.
Apparently the liberal creatives behind the film are frustrated with the lack of liberal media attention for the film, and the conservative audience is the one championing the film for not sugar-coating the incident—although, to play devil’s advocate to the IndieWire piece, a good number of liberal-minded critics have given the film positive reviews.
All the same, most moviegoers are Continue reading Chappaquiddick (2018) Movie Review
In 2013, Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor told the soap operatic story about a woman whose life falls apart due to a reckless and ill-advised romantic relationship. With 2018’s Acrimony, Perry weaves a story with the exact same premise, frame narrative and all.
Temptation was a tone-deaf, overly dramatic tragic romance that failed on almost every level. Acrimony…well Acrimony at least has Taraji P. Henson. Continue reading Acrimony (2018) Movie Review
In Red Sparrow, Jennifer Lawrence plays ballerina Dominika Egorova, who, after a less-than-accidental accident leaves her leg broken, is brought into the world of the Russian secret service by her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts). She is sent to a special school that trains “Sparrows,” government agents who are trained to seduce their targets and to withstand any amount of force.
And, mostly, it’s uncomfortable. But it’s not uncomfortable in any productive way. We see Lawrence’s Dominika be subjected to Continue reading Red Sparrow (2018) Movie Review
Clint Eastwood’s latest, The 15:17 to Paris, tells the true story of three Americans who prevented a potentially disastrous terrorist attack on the eponymous train to Paris in 2015. Not only does Eastwood tell this story, but he casts the three men to play themselves.
This is a lot to ask, having three non-actors carry the dramatic heft of a movie, but the three men (Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos) do a Continue reading The 15:17 to Paris (2018) Movie Review
Congratulations, everyone. We are now officially living in a post-Fifty Shades world. It’s over. We made it.
Listen, the Fifty Shades trilogy has received its guff. We all know what the critical consensus is on these films. Why bother with yet another review of yet another film of this trilogy? Because, at the risk of losing any credibility I may have accrued as a critic, Fifty Shades Freed is the best of the trilogy.
Does that make it a good film? No. Is it a film with a better message than the other Fifty Shades movies? Not at all. But it has Continue reading Fifty Shades Freed (2018) Movie Review
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