I saw The Revenant a few days before the Oscar ceremony, but am still trying to come to grips with it. Technically it is an amazing achievement; I would have only eliminated two specific shots (both of which involve Leonardo DiCaprio […]
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Dirty Grandpa (2016) ☆
I wasn’t going to see this; it isn’t my kind of movie, at least, not any more. Its nonstop vulgarity, profanity, misogyny and stupidity leave me cold. It still stuns me that a two-time Oscar winner agreed to star in […]
Continue reading »Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
Why do some animated movies capture our hearts even more than live action films? Character. The Toy Story gang, Bambi and his friends Thumper and Flower, even Shrek and Fiona — those characters are what lure us into these imaginary worlds […]
Continue reading »Hail, Caesar! (2016) ☆ ☆
Lots of film fans feel the Coen brothers are absolute geniuses, but to me they are hit and miss. For every really good title — and they’ve produced several — there are an equal number of mediocre projects, and a […]
Continue reading »The Finest Hours (2016) ☆ 1/2
The type of heroic instance upon which this film is based would seem to promise a surefire, can’t miss, inspirational, dramatic film adaptation. After all, if it really was the most daring rescue in the history of the United States […]
Continue reading »Jane Got a Gun (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
The year is misleading; this film was shot nearly four years ago, but is only just now finding its way into a theaters for a few weeks. It went through development hell, switching directors, crew members and stars before Gavin […]
Continue reading »The 5th Wave (2016) ☆ ☆
I’ve been interested in this movie ever since I read Rick Yancey’s book a couple of years ago. It’s an ◊◊apocalyptic thriller depicting an alien invasion of Earth. The book was quite involving once I accepted its premise, and the […]
Continue reading »45 Years (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Quiet dramas with older characters dealing with age or coming to terms with events in their pasts often catch Academy Award attention, and such is the case with 45 Years, for which Charlotte Rampling has been nominated as Best Actress. […]
Continue reading »Brooklyn (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆
Movies like this don’t come along very often; Brooklyn is an old-fashioned romantic drama paced very deliberately, without the emotional peaks that moviegoers have come to expect. It is beautifully photographed and very well acted, particularly by Saoirse Ronan (pronounced Seer-sha) […]
Continue reading »The Big Short (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Making a movie about the financial crisis of 2007-8 seems tricky to me because there are no winners or losers — only losers. The American public lost immense amounts of money; the banks and government lost trust as well as […]
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