Category: 3 Stars
-
The sour overpowers the sweet in About Last Night…
Even though I think I have to casually give Edward Zwick’s About Last Night… only three stars here, there’s a lot to commend it. There’s no high concept or clever hook to slap on the poster: no one falls in love with their maid or the magnate destroying their small business, no one gets amnesia…
-
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is Terry Gilliam’s 8½
If I hadn’t seen The Man Who Killed Don Quixote with my own eyes, I’d have trouble believing it exists. So Terry Gilliam has finally made his Quixote; but it might be more accurate to say that he finally made his 8½. In a way, Gilliam has been making this movie over and over for…
-
L.A. Takedown is the rough draft for Michael Mann’s masterpiece Heat
I finally, finally, finally had the opportunity to cross L.A. Takedown off my movie watchlist — a largely unavailable holy grail that I’ve been desperately curious to see for years. If director Michael Mann had not reworked this material into the masterpiece Heat, L.A. Takedown would probably be pushed so far down his IMDB or Letterboxd listings that…
-
Motherless Brooklyn is a civics lesson wrapped in an actorly exercise
I understand the generally negative reception that Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn encountered, but I didn’t dislike it for two very mundane reasons: 1. I happened to watch it in the middle of binging HBO’s Perry Mason miniseries (with which it coincidentally happens to have a great deal in common), and frankly, Motherless Brooklyn comes out on top.…
-
Interstellar is a yet another time twisty Nolan scenario
The torturously complex premise of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar requires a constant stream of exposition throughout, something I don’t recall being a problem in the director’s other time twisty scenarios like The Prestige and Inception. It’s also less emotionally urgent than either, perhaps indicating that the high-concept structure overwhelmed everything else. If Coop (Matthew McConaughey) —…
-
Elisabeth Moss has a villain problem in The Invisible Man
For a movie named after the antagonist, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man has a villain problem. At one point, Cecelia (Elisabeth Moss) asks an interesting question: her husband is famous and wealthy, and can have anyone — so why her? In one question, she essentially admits her longstanding insecurity at having a handsome rich man…
-
Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die is an unaffectionate homage
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that Jim Jarmusch would make a zombie movie, since he’s already cycled through idiosyncratic interpretations of westerns (Dead Man), vampires (Only Lovers Left Alive), samurai (Ghost Dog), and thrillers (The Limits of Control). But unlike these, The Dead Don’t Die reads as an unaffectionate (or to coin a word,…
-
1917 is not the first single-take movie, but it’s one of the best
Every review or casual comment about 1917, from pan to praise, will all begin with the same undeniable fact: it’s an astounding technical achievement. While far from the first apparent single-take feature-length film, it’s certainly one of the most seamless. Better, the feat is partially insulated from charges of gimmickry in that the structure derives…
-
What makes Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds unique also sabotages it
Although easily overlooked among the Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise filmographies, I actually rather enjoy their 2005 War of the Worlds remake. Unfortunately, what makes it unique also sabotages it: It’s practically a requirement for the alien invasion genre that the protagonist be the big hero that saves the world. Refreshingly, Cruise’s character here is…
-
Taika Waititi mocks the devil in Jojo Rabbit
Perhaps unfairly, a couple external factors negatively affected my experience of Jojo Rabbit: The Brooklyn Alamo Drafthouse programmed the trailer for Terrence Malick’s forthcoming A Hidden Life before Jojo Rabbit, throwing a spotlight on the “good German” trope they both share. Of course, both quiet and loud German resistance to Nazi atrocities existed, and I’m…