Movie Reviews
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Like many a comic actor before her, Melissa McCarthy would like to show she be taken seriously in a serious movie. She’s off to a good start with this one, picking up an Oscar nomination for the true story of Lee Israel, a fiction writer whose career is in the toilet, and who finds out she has a talent for creating forged letters from famous writers. For a while there she’s living pretty ... Read more »
Bad Times at the El Royale
It is 1969, and four people arrive at a motel that is situated right on the Nevada/California state line. In fact, a red line goes through the middle of the lobby, so you can gamble only on one side. None of these people are what they claim to be, and the motel itself has its own secrets. It is a place that used to be host to members of the Rat Pack and other celebrities, but has fallen ... Read more »
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
This was a big hit in Sweden, but probably too quirky to find more than a small audience in America. Like the title says, this old dude escapes from the retirement home where he has been wasting his later life. He goes to the bus station, and through a series of funny events, ends up with a suitcase stuffed with money that belongs to a drug dealer. And so the chase is on. Allen is a little ... Read more »
The Favourite
This is a great, and against all my expectations, fairly accurate story of the rivalry between Abigail (later Baroness) Masham (played by Emma Stone) and Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) for the affections of and influence over Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). It’s one of the better costume period comedy/dramas. The writing is swell, the acting is terrific. I recommend ... Read more »
The Widow
Kate Beckinsale seems to be known mostly for the six films in the Underworld franchise, which we haven’t seen. Since it’s apparently about vampires, we probably won’t see them. Her appearance here makes it easy to believe she can do an action film. She has a physical presence that’s hard to imitate. You either have it or you don’t. This ... Read more »
Ordeal By Innocence
It is said that a good rule of thumb in an Agatha Christie mystery is to pick the least likely person to be the murderer. You will usually be right. But not always.
The Argyll family are fabulously wealthy, so when the mother is fatally bludgeoned the husband and all five of the children have a possible money motive. (All of the children were adopted.) But it quickly develops that ... Read more »
A Star Is Born
As soon as I heard that this third remake of a movie was in the works, I just knew that I would have to go back down Memory Lane and see the others again. So we went on an ASIB binge.
1937. Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell and director William Wellman came up with a hell of a story, about an alcoholic, formerly great movie star on his way down, and his relationship with ... Read more »
The Wife
SPOILER WARNING. I will be revealing the Big Secret.
As I write this it is about 23 hours until those little gold statues are handed out, in what seems likely to be the most fucked-up Oscars ever. The smart money says that Lady Gaga, Olivia Colman, Melissa McCarthy, and Yalitza Aparicio needn’t show up, as this is finally the year for Glenn Close to win, after six previous ... Read more »
A Private War
Marie Colvin was an American reporter who had been working for The Sunday Times in London for five or six years as a foreign correspondent covering various wars around the globe when she lost an eye to an RPG in Sri Lanka. That’s where our story begins, and we already know that she was to die from an IED during the siege of Homs in Syria, in 2001.
I could ... Read more »
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
The only reason I can see for some of the simply devastating reviews of this picture is what I’m calling the Mary Poppins effect. How dare they fuck with an icon like Mary/Tchaikovsky!
“Lovely to look at, easy to forget.”
“Empty but eye-popping.”
“Soulless.”
“Dreck.”
Some deranged butthead named Alonso Durande, in a review titled “This Sugarplum is ... Read more »