2020 Academy Awards, All Movie Reviews, Animation, Like It

2020 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Film Reviews – Hair Love, Kitbull, Sister

The Oscar nominations have dropped. Among them are a number of great short films. Three of the contenders for Best Animated Short Film are currently available to view online: Hair Love, Kitbull, and Sister. And they’re all worth seeking out.

Hair Love

Hair Love is my favorite short film of 2019. Released through Sony Pictures Animation and playing before the inferior The Angry Birds Movie 2, Matthew A. Cherry’s film is Continue reading 2020 Oscar Nominated Animated Short Film Reviews – Hair Love, Kitbull, Sister →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

1917 (2019) Movie Review

The buzz surrounding 1917, the new film by Sam Mendes in tribute to his grandfather, is its technical achievement of appearing as if it is two extremely long takes. Aside from one pointedly hard cut, the film hides its edits in its pans across surfaces which cover the frame or in tunnels of darkness.

It is a technique reminiscent of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman or Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (Hitchcock would have attempted a completely one-take film if he were not limited by the technical capabilities of the time, which only allowed about seven minutes of footage before the film had to be changed out). The long tracking shots through trenches might also bring to mind Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, whose long takes make the film feel surprisingly modern.

If you are a long take purist, however, you may Continue reading 1917 (2019) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Grudge (2020) Movie Review

Following the huge success of Gore Verbinski’s The Ring in 2002, The J-horror franchise Ju-on was remade in the United States as The Grudge in 2004. It was also a success. In the first weekend of 2020, another remake of Ju-on appeared in theaters to little fanfare. To Sony, it seemed like a good idea. The time gap is big enough. The January market is (while a notorious dumping ground) not a moneyless area for horror.

And the premise of Ju-on, like any good myth, is worth retelling. The concept of a house whose primary tenant is a spiritual curse is (while by no means wholly original) intriguing. The story moves from Continue reading The Grudge (2020) Movie Review →

Lists

A Decade of Film in Review (Best Movies of the 2010s?)

Earlier this year, I toyed with the idea of writing the semi-obligatory “Best of the Decade” list. What films were the best in this arbitrary chunk of time we call the 2010s? The USA Today did it. The A.V. Club did it. The New Yorker did it. Wired did it. IndieWire did it early. CineFiles should at least attempt to do it, too.

I made a list on Letterboxd. It started at around 400 films. I winnowed it down to roughly 200. I could copy those films into a traditional list. Write a pithy blurb here and there. Attach some pictures. But I hesitated. And hesitated. Tweaked a ranking here or there. Again, hesitation. Ultimately, it just didn’t happen.

moonlight-2017-oscar-predictions-mahershala-ali-best-supporting-actor

The question that kept catching me, preventing me from doing any real work toward a Best of the Decade list, was: “Why bother?” This list represents Continue reading A Decade of Film in Review (Best Movies of the 2010s?) →

Lists

The 20 Best Movies of 2019

It is that time of year again. Time to create an exceedingly subjective, by-no-means exhaustive list of the “best” movies of 2019. 2019 was a good year in film. There were plenty of strong contenders for this list (find my full ranking of 2019 films at Letterboxd). I could have stretched this list out to 30 or 40 films, but I decided to keep it short and sweet. I just crammed in as many honorable mentions as felt appropriate, instead.

You can find my candidates for worst movie of the year here.

Honorable Mentions: American Factory, Apollo 11, Arctic, Ash is Purest White, Birds of Passage, Hail Satan?, A Hidden Life, Horror Noire, Midsommar, Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood, One Cut of the Dead, Rolling Thunder Revue, The Souvenir, The Vast of Night, Wild Rose

 

Continue reading The 20 Best Movies of 2019 →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

Uncut Gems (2019) Movie Review

Harold (Adam Sandler) always thinks he is one step away from hitting big. A compulsive sports gambler who runs a dubious gem store, Harold is firmly placed within the seedy underbelly of New York City. And he likes it there. He thrives in the mire of it. He smiles as he schemes his way around town, placing bets with money he should be using to pay back his debts.

Harold’s Sisyphean journey of self-destruction centers on an Ethiopian stone embedded with black opals. It is a stone he claims is worth about $3,000 a carat, totaling to an approximately $1 million value. Through Harold’s partner Demany (LaKeith Stanfield), the stone winds up in the hands of Continue reading Uncut Gems (2019) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), musical

Cats (2019) Movie Review

I am not overly familiar with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s feline musical Cats, but I gather that the 2019 film adaptation from Tom Hooper is fairly loyal to the subject matter. Victoria (Francesca Hayward), a young white-haired cat, is thrown violently from a car and finds herself in London streets populated with other cats. She just so happens to be arriving on the day of the Jellicle Ball, an annual event where jellicle cats compete in the Jellicle Choice, which allows one lucky jellicle cat to ascend to a new jellicle life in the “Heaviside Layer.”

I cannot confidently tell you what “jellicle” means.

Cats is, to put it kindly, hard to watch. The humanoid manifestations of these cat characters, rendered in CGI but maintaining the general visages of the performers’ faces, has been Continue reading Cats (2019) Movie Review →

Lists

Top 10 Worst Films of 2019

Update – December 21, 2019, 8:00 pm: Cats was added to Dishonorable Mentions

2019 was a very good year for movies. In my opinion, there are (at least) three masterpieces coming out of this calendar year. But every film cannot be a masterpiece. Some films fail, are made poorly, or are downright offensive. 2019 had plenty of those, as well.

You can like what you like. I won’t stop you. If you like any of the films on this list, that’s fine with me (if you like the number one film, though, maybe we shouldn’t hang out). These are simply my personal least favorite films of 2019.

Dishonorable Mentions: The Angry Birds Movie 2, Cats, Fractured, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Guns Akimbo, Hellboy, The Lion King, Miss Bala, Pet Sematary, Replicas, The Upside, What Men Want

10. The Curse of La Llorona

There is a long history of La Llorona, or “The Crying Woman,” in film. But the figure of urban legend was not well known by American audiences before Continue reading Top 10 Worst Films of 2019 →

2020 Academy Awards, Lists

2019 CineFiles Awards — Best Films of the Year

I do a lot of awards season coverage on this site (admittedly, much less of it this season). For the amount of attention the Academy Awards is given on CineFiles, I don’t always agree with the choices the Academy makes. As such, in this end-of-year sprint to catch up on as many movies as possible, I decided to put together a ballot of my own personal favorites of the year.

The ballot covers all Oscar categories except the three short film categories, as I have seen only a small number of short films this year. Other films I find noteworthy—including my favorite short film of the year—are given Continue reading 2019 CineFiles Awards — Best Films of the Year →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Movie Review

There is something completely understandable and, to  an extent, forgivable about the slapdash, lumpy, and largely hollow pieces that shape the narrative of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. There is a distinct feeling, present from the opening scene of The Rise of Skywalker, that J.J. Abrams started this race a lap behind (Abrams was brought on late to the film after Disney parted ways with Colin Trevorrow).

It is a feeling that some higher power, whether it be Abrams or Kathleen Kennedy or whoever, decided to Continue reading Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Movie Review →

One man. Thousands of movies.