Eleanor Ringel, Movie Critic, was the film critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years. She was nominated multiple times for a Pulitzer Prize. She won the Best of Cox Critic, IMAGE Film & Video and Women In Film awards. An Atlanta native, she graduated from Westminster and Brown University. She was the critic on WXIA’s Noonday, a member of Entertainment Weekly's Critics Grid and wrote TV Guide’s movie/DVD. She is member of the National Society of Film Critics and currently talks about movies on WMLB and writes the Time Out column for the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
By Eleanor Ringel Cater
“1917” occupies a kind of unusual no-man’s land, somewhere between Kirk Douglas’ “Paths of Glory” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”
It’s not as good as either of those masterworks, but it’s good – really good – in its own way.
As a woman, bibliophile and – you guessed it! – feminist, I’m supposed to love Louisa May Alcott’s 19th-century novel, “Little Women,” about four sisters and their mom, living in Massachusetts during the Civil War.
Well, I don’t. I don’t hate it, but the adventures of Lassie or the Black Stallion always appealed more.
“Bombshell” is not only one of the best movies of the year. It’s also one of the most important.
Never mind what Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell” may or may not be saying about females in the media. This movie looks at males and females in the media, and I don’t think there are going to be any lawsuits.
In the “The Aeronauts,” Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones take us up, up and away in their beautiful hot-air balloon. It’s a trip you don’t want to miss – especially on the big screen.
“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” may be one of the most daring movies of the year.
The title suggests kid stuff; you know, a chance to embrace the affable and spiritually-inclined children’s show host many of us – or our kids or our grandkids – grew up with. Fred Rogers was, in his way, the “anti-Sesame Street.”
Filmmaker Noah Baumbach’s newest, “Marriage Story,” is the story of a marriage, all right, but a marriage at its worst point, i.e., a marriage in meltdown.
Maybe I’m all Martin Scorsese’d out.
After all, I’ve been watching his movies for almost half a century.
But “The Irishman,” which I’d hoped would be his piece de resistance, his final say on what he had to say about the gangster genre that, with few exceptions, he pretty much owns, didn’t do it for me.
In “JoJo Rabbit,” Mel Brooks meets Wes Anderson, and it’s not a good match. Brooks is broad, vulgar, vaudevillian. Anderson is arch, aesthetic, a minimalist of sorts.
As the title suggests, “The Current War: Director’s Cut” is one of those films whose backstory is easily as interesting as the one being told on screen.
Bong Joon-ho’s superb new film “Parasite” is full of crazy rich Asians. Crazy poor ones, too.
In fact, it’s difficult to say who the true parasites are here: the wealthy but vacuous Park family or the conniving but under-motivated Kims.
“Zombieland: Double Tap” is all tapped out.
The first “Zombieland,” released in 2009, was funny, original and unexpected. And it had Bill Murray. (So does the sequel, but in a bedraggled post-credits sequence that sets zombies loose at a junket for “Garfield 3.”)
Even the ticket guy winced when I asked to see “Gemini Man,” the new Will Smith sci-fi-ish thriller.
Once I was watching the movie, I did, too.
But I winced most of all — or maybe I gasped – when the thing ended and the final credits read “Directed by Ang Lee.”
In the 1960s, TV gave us witches and genies and castaways and filthy rich hillbillies.
Until, that is, 1965, when Bill Cosby was cast opposite Robert Culp in “I Spy.”
And then, in 1968, there was “Julia,” starring Diahann Carroll as a professional woman – a nurse and a single mom (Vietnam made her a widow).
In the new movie “Judy,” Renée Zellweger doesn’t just impersonate Judy Garland. She inhabits her. Heart, soul, and amazingly enough, voice – or close enough. (Garland, like Streisand, will always be unique).
“Ad Astra” – Latin for “To the Stars” – is powered by one very bright shining star, Brad Pitt. And this performance, coupled with his superb work in the summer’s “Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood,” could propel him to a much-deserved Oscar. (Fingers crossed the two don’t cancel each other out).
If “The Maltese Falcon” is the stuff that dreams are made of, “The Goldfinch” is the stuff that dreck is made of.
Donna’s Tartt’s sprawling Dickensian novel was a favorite with critics and book clubs alike. In some ways, it’s the sort of movie Hollywood used to make in its sleep: prestigious, densely plotted, with panoply of colorful characters.
When I was a kid, which was when I first experienced “Fiddler on the Roof,” the traditions laid out in the opening song were enough to turn me Episcopalian.
And yet, the show’s power, charm and, yes, soul is such that it’s always been one of my favorite musicals.
I don’t know what cell phone plan David Oyelowo is using in “Don’t Let Go,” but it’s a doozy.
Probably best known for his starring turn as Martin Luther King Jr. in “Selma,” Oyelowo here plays Jack, an LAPD detective who has a particularly close relationship with his adorable, precocious teenage niece, Ashley (Storm Reid).
The traditional vow, “Till death do us part” gains a new urgency for Grace (Samara Weaving), a bride who discovers how perilous a wedding night can be in “Ready or Not.”
A disposable, yet entertaining little movie that never quite manages the blend of slasher and satire it aspires to, “Ready or Not” does feature an admirable performance by Weaving (niece of Hugo) and enough twists to keep you interested (if not always amused or terrified).
When a movie starring a two-time Oscar winner, directed by a multiple Oscar nominee and based on a best-seller opens in mid-August, well, something’s wrong.
And something is.
