Well, I found it! No, not the best film of the year, but the yearly pre-award season movie I get excited for, based on an impeccable trailer and cast (that Sigur Rós music sealed the deal). Like “Suffragette” in 2015, “A Light Between Oceans” last year, “The Zookeeper’s Wife” takes this year’s award for advertising […]
Director Amma Asante continues to deliver important true stories about diverse relationships throughout history. Belle (2011) was a beautiful underappreciated film that functioned as a discovery picture for actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Miss Sloane). Asante reunites with Belle co-star Davenport, playing a larger part in this film. It’s the consistently impressive presence of David Oyelowo (Selma)
Another film with good intentions; dark history that deserves to be on the big screen, weakened by a terrible script and amateur direction. C-rate television director George Mendeluk and screenwriter Richard Bachynsky Hoover use the “Titanic Movie” model to convey a love story set inside the horrific events of Ukraine’s man-made famine that killed around
Another moderately predictable formula this awards season; transformative performance showcased in a by the numbers genre film. What genre you might ask, the white man wanting to make it big genre. Gold, inspired by a true story (but then aren’t they all these days) has similarities to The Wolf of Wall Street and a bit
There isn’t any brilliant filmmaking here, Michael Keaton (“Birdman”) doesn’t land the performance of the year. “The Founder” instead works as a pure interest story, shedding light of the history of America’s most popular restaurant, McDonalds. John Lee Hancock is known for such family feelers as “Saving Mr. Banks” (exposing Walt Disney, it was a
Following his 2014 indie St. Vincent, writer/director Theodore Melfi delivers one of 2016’s most heartwarming and rousing true stories. If Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) does snag her second Oscar nomination, along with presumed nominees from Fences, Moonlight and Queen of Katwe, the Academy might take credit for the diversity reversal,
The South American perspective of Jackie Kennedy is apparently similar to a horror movie seen through the eyes of director Pablo Larraín. In his first English language film, the 40-year-old surprisingly molds Jackie in the same structure of fellow Chilean director Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others (2001). The vicious editing choices paired with the savage musical
“In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in ‘blood and guts’, and in living color, you are going to see another first—attempted suicide.” Christine is a powerful film about the effects and too often untreated form of depression, if that’s in fact what news reporter Christine Chubbuck was suffering from. Rebecca
Ben Younger’s boxing film Bleed for This is not an awards contender despite debuting at Toronto’s film festival. While the best actor race might be a bit on the weak side, it’s not weak enough to include Teller (Whiplash, Fantasic Four), who continues to struggle for his place in the American box office market. Ben
Two-time Oscar winner Mel Gibson (“Braveheart”, “Apocalypto”) continues his 2016 comeback, this time back in the director’s chair, for the first time in a decade. “Hacksaw Ridge” is based on the equally incredible and humbling true story of WWII Conscientious Objector Desmond T. Doss. Gibson brings together his vast war film experience to embed the