In the beginning of this film, I was impressed with seeing how a music video was made. Then, I was impressed with how many people were fawning over the star, noting that she puts herself down and harshly criticizes her performances. But it’s not clear whether she does this intentionally (to get praise and reassurance) or whether […]
This is a potentially good film, but uneven in its quality. I so wish it had been done well, because I’m sympathetic to most of the issues presented. But the script (Kelly O’Sullivan) and direction (Alex Thompson) are deficient in telling the basic story. Sometimes the action is overwrought, and other times almost devoid of emotion. It addresses important
Yakov (Davis) is in a rather fragile state as a result of a traumatic event and subsequent stay in a protected Hassadic Jewish community. Those around him are supportive and helpful in guiding him through the transition back into normal life. He assures them he is just fine, only strapped for funds. When his old rabbi and friend
This film seems to have a number of targets; there is the old school “street” agent working to bring in dope smugglers, and the cyber threat from criminals using encrypted software and Bitcoin to bring in the dough. We see how these two positions are pitted against each other in Silk Road, but we also see other
Minari is very much a true-to-life story of a family from Korea trying to achieve their dreams on a farm in Arkansas. Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung weaves into a complex mosaic all the many experiences of immigration, including the blending of cultures, marital disagreement and conflict, cross-generational attempts to understand, differing religious beliefs, the complications of aging,
Could there be a more unlikely group to be together in Paris? The movie takes a while in getting you/them there. It starts out with Frances Price (Pfeiffer) learning—although not for the first time of being told—that she is out of money. Obviously, from her home, to the way she is dressed, and the places she frequents, she
An admirable feat of artistic production, The World to Come takes us on an unexpected journey through two marriages in the 19thCentury full of grief and ineptitude lit up by an uncommon love. The two couples live on isolated farms in New York. We first meet Abigale (Waterston) and Dyer (Affleck) who live a seemingly ideal life on a
Betrayal of one’s own can be considered one of the most egregious of sins, and this film about the Black Panthers in the 1960’s does an excellent job in charting the beginnings of such a compromise, the experience of the betrayer, and some of the after-effects for the perpetrator. The story is told from William O’Neal’s
When was the last time you saw a film where a female character patched a roof or gutted a deer? Golden Globe winner Robin Wright honed her directing skills behind the scenes of Netflix’s “House of Cards,” directing ten episodes including the series finale. In addition to “House of Cards,” Wright the actress is best
This is a movie like many we’ve seen before about the blatant racism of the Deep South during the time of the early civil rights movement in the early 1960’s. It’s based on the memoir (The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement) of Bob Zellner a young man at the time