Moonlight (2016)

Posted on November 21, 2016 | Leave a comment

moonlight_poster

five

There was a moment in my life when I realized a bully was just a person reacting to their own insecurity. Understanding that someone could respond to their personal weakness by exposing and abusing it in others was a shock, an epiphany that shifted my world. Red-faced bluster started to look like fear, strength became suspect, self-doubt revealed dignity. Moonlight is a film that examines the weakness and dignity of a gay black man in the poor, powerful streets of Miami, and the bullies building walls around him. It navigates the volatile waters of masculinity and sexuality, black culture, addiction, love and hate, blending them into something familiar and awful.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Full List, In Theaters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Doctor Strange (2016)

Posted on November 14, 2016 | Leave a comment

doctorstrange_poster

threehalf

It’s important to understand that what Marvel Studios is doing right now is unprecedented. They just released Doctor Strange, their fourteenth film in a connected series with concrete plans for eight more, a bunker full of characters at their disposal, and money coming in. Movie franchises aren’t new — the first James Bond came out in 1963 — but this is something else: A strictly interconnected universe, with complex character arcs over multiple films, and unparalleled visual set pieces. And because this is unprecedented, Marvel Studios has yet to realize that the frequency and quality of their films have spoiled the audience. It’s how a film like Doctor Strange, one that introduces a character efficiently, hits all the necessary beats with plenty of humorous interjections, and pairs the story to astonishing, unprecedented visual sequences, can only be pretty good.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in In Theaters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anomalisa (2015)

Posted on November 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

anomalisa_poster

four

If there’s a vanguard of comic insecurity, Charlie Kaufman is leading it. In the seven films he’s thus far written (and more recently, directed), Kaufman’s characters are often overwhelmed, crippled by an oil/water mix of ego and self doubt. It’s important to maintain the distinction between an author and his voices, but with Kaufman it’s just lip service — he is deeply embedded in his work. In the stop-motion animated Anomalisa, this penchant for gluttonous self-examination produces Michael Stone, a man of misanthropy and mania. Or, in other words, a man.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in In Theaters, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Birth of a Nation (2016)

Posted on October 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

birthofnation_poster

fourhalf

Whether for art or commerce, making a film is a team sport. The undertaking insists that many minds and many hands work many hours in concert. Still, some films are far more the product of an individual’s tireless effort. Nate Parker wrote, directed and stars in The Birth of a Nation, the story of Nat Turner and his 48-hour slave rebellion. It exists more because of him than anyone else, save Nat Turner.

Nate Parker was also accused of rape in 1999, a controversy that has become intrinsically tied to his film and the conversation surrounding it. In answering a question that is both new and terribly old, each of us must decide whether or not the artist’s (alleged) transgressions should swallow his work. Though many would like this to be a universal assessment, it is inevitably personal. And in making this determination, it’s important to remember that not only can an artist’s work surpass the artist, but in fact, it should.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Full List, In Theaters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Noah (2014)

Posted on April 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

noahposter_danbillustration

twohalf

Darren Aronofsky has always felt a bit like America’s Lars von Trier — a brilliant misanthropic visionary, a storyteller whose wry approach often hits closer to home than we’d like. Aronofsky is more of a romantic than von Trier, but the emotional depths to which both men often insist on traveling feel kindred. And the results tend to share a gloom that distinguishes them from their peers. While Noah begins as an immense action epic, it ends in much more familiar territory for Aronofsky: Tense, probing character drama dealing with the lengths to which an obsessive person will go to do something they believe in.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Posted on April 5, 2014 | 2 comments

grandbudapestposter

five

Ralph Fiennes hasn’t been given many chances to act silly. Even his lighter roles end up heavy, which is why his filmography is built on Schindler’s Lists and English Patients. It begs the question of how Wes Anderson landed on Fiennes for his M. Gustave, whose kooky concierge is the comedic axis of the film? — a question answered promptly with a hundred minutes of Fiennes’ inexhaustible talent and charm. This may be Anderson’s purest comedy to date, which says any number of things about the director — he’s lightening up, he’s more interested in genre, he understands how hilarious Willem Dafoe will look with a false, canine-heavy underbite. The Grand Budapest Hotel is another minutely detailed, masterfully constructed film from Wes Anderson, and a reminder that he’s almost certainly the most meticulous director working today.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Five Stars, Full List, In Theaters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Amarcord (1973)

Posted on March 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

11amarcordposter

four

We all have stories from our youth. Their veracity is usually up for debate, but the stories are there, napping in the shadowy parts of our brains. Amarcord — a Northern Italian phrase for I remember — is Federico Fellini’s story. It has a small town, and fascists, and befitting the frenzied concupiscence of teenage boys, a coterie of beautiful women serving as little more than objects. Looking backwards in time is a finicky venture, and for Fellini bears out all manner of misremembrances in service of his dark comedy, which is often about the way those inevitable misremembrances make our stories better.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Classics, DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee, Oscar Winner

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Monuments Men (2014)

Posted on February 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

10monumentsposter

two

It’s often a good thing when a director settles into his own style, when he reaches a degree of comfort with his voice as a storyteller. It means he can spend less time obsessing over style choices and more time considering what lies at the center of the stories he’s chosen to tell. Not so George Clooney. In Leatherheads and Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney revealed a proclivity towards the atmosphere of Old Hollywood–Old America even. He also showed a modicum of nuance in the way he presented it. Unfortunately, The Monuments Men finds him exploring this inclination more single-mindedly and fruitlessly than ever before.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Full List, In Theaters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2013’s Top Nine

Posted on February 21, 2014 | 1 comment

HER

So here they are, my best of 2013. I’ll allow my two-month demurral and the list’s incompleteness (who does a top nine?) to speak for the sort of year I had in the theaters. Still, I saw enough to have an opinion and I’m going to share it with you.

Enjoy.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Lists, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Salinger (2013)

Posted on February 16, 2014 | Leave a comment

Salinger_yellow

three

Salinger is built like an homage, speaking of the man with a spiritual reverence, maintaining an air of enigmatic romance with “never before seen” imagery and footage. The author’s elusiveness is the throughline, and Salinger wants desperately to play a part in the creation of his mythology, assembling old friends and contemporaries to talk about his work and character with great solemnity. It works, not because the film is effectively made, but because the story of Jerry “J.D.” Salinger is so salient. For those who have read Salinger, and felt a kinship with the man through that writing, Salinger is the rare film that unlocks its subject while somehow telling you what you already knew: He was a true artist, and true artists don’t owe us anything.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Netflix

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,