Atlantans packed a room at the Woodruff Arts Center on Monday night for a performance that can only happen every four years — Atlanta mayoral candidates bidding for the votes of art lovers.
To be absolutely blunt about it, “Their Finest” is one of the finest films of the year thus far.
The title is a play on Winston Churchill’s famous, “This was their finest hour” speech, which he made to Parliament in 1940 as a way to rally the British and strengthen their resolve to finish off Hitler and his Nazis.
In “Tommy’s Honour,” the greatest hazard facing Tommy Morris – the 19th-century golf prodigy who won the equivalent of the British Open four times before he turned 21 – wasn’t sand traps or rough weather. It was the wretchedly rigid class system which decreed, no matter how well he did on the course, off the course he wasn’t a gentleman and thereby ineligible for acceptance into the inner circle at Scotland’s august St. Andrews. The highest he could aspire to was being a caddy.
If you’re going to insist on making a movie about cuddly old codgers, you can’t do much better than casting Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, the stars of “Going in Style.”
This trio of Oscar winners (Caine has two, actually) know all about how to make a movie work as best as it possibly can. And they know how to rescue one when it gets in trouble.
“Get Out” pulls off a pretty impressive balancing act. It is simultaneously funny as all get out and scary as all get out.
The brainchild of Jordan Peele (best known as the shorter half of the Peele and Key comedy duo), “Get Out” has been hanging on in theaters for weeks now. No wonder. It’s an eminently satisfying film, combining sharp social satire with a horror flick’s incremental sense of dread.
It’s one thing to buy a zoo, as Matt Damon did in the 2011 movie. It’s quite another to keep the remnants of a zoo up and running after the Nazis have goose-stepped into Poland, as Jessica Chastain does in “The Zookeeper’s Wife.”
Based on a true story, the movie follows the quiet heroics of Antonina and Jan Zabinski (Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh). Not only did they do their best to keep the few animals that survived the initial Nazi invasion alive; they also used their decimated zoo as a means to hide Jews who’d escaped the infamous Warsaw Ghetto.
Kristin Stewart and her cell phone co-star in “Personal Shopper,” a ghost story for the cyber age. Since Stewart always looks slightly haunted, you could almost say it’s typecasting.
However, the typecasting here is of a different sort. As she did in “The Clouds of Sils Maria,” Stewart is again playing the personal assistant to a powerful woman. But while the core of “Sils Maria” was the give-and-take between her and Juliette Binoche (the self-absorbed actor who employs her), the boss in “Personal Shopper” is more a plot device than anything else. This movie is all about Stewart; thankfully, she’s such an intriguing actor, she can handle it.
In a manner of speaking, the Viet Cong meet King Kong in “Kong: Skull Island,” the newest iteration on the timeless theme of a gorilla the size of the Ritz.
Actually, the Kong we meet here is the size of several Ritz’s – plus the Empire State Building.
If you don’t already know who Logan is, you may not be all that interested in reading a review of a movie named “Logan.”
But what if I told you Logan is the alter ego of the X-Man known as Wolverine, the superhero (of a sort) Hugh Jackman has played for the last 17 years?
Move over, Sacheen Littlefeather
You are no longer the craziest thing ever to happen on Oscar night.
Ms. Littlefeather, as some of you may recall, was the semi-faux Native American sent by Marlon Brando to pick up his Oscar the night he won for “The Godfather.”
Recently, there was a full-page ad for “Lion” in the Sunday New York Times. Given that the film has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, this isn’t especially surprising.
What is surprising is, instead of the usual critics’ quotes, the ad features ringing endorsements from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and UNICEF.
It’s not every film that offers a sex scene involving a petit four, but then, “Toni Erdman” is not every film. It’s utterly, insistently unique.
An absurdist dark comedy with a thoughtful subtext, Maren Ade’s German comedy is both seriously silly and, well, seriously serious.
It’s been a while since I’ve walked out on a movie.
This past week, I walked out on two: “The Comedian” and “A Dog’s Purpose.”
More pseudo-thriller than psycho-thriller, “Split” is like “The Three Faces of Eve” (or “Sybil”) meets “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to a M. Night. Shyamalan movie – last year’s “The Visit” had hinted at a return to his “The Sixth Sense” glory days – along comes this mess.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, “What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Not according to Ray Kroc, the man who super-sized McDonald’s before Morgan Spurlock was a twinkle in anyone’s eye.
“Patriots Day” is apparently what locals call the day of the Boston Marathon.
It also makes a most fitting title for this tautly told movie about the Boston Marathon everyone remembers: The one in 2013 when a pair of bombs went off near the finish line, killing three and injuring over 250.
If her recent win at the Golden Globes – beating the likes of Natalie Portman and Amy Adams – hinted at how amazing Isabelle Huppert is, wait until you see “Elle.”
It begins with off-screen sounds: Breaking glass, a female voice in some sort of distress. Then we see a cat, its eyes passive and opaque. And then we see what’s happening. A woman (Huppert) is being raped by a masked intruder. In her own home. In broad daylight.
Despite all the bad stuff we experienced (reel and real), 2016 deserves respect for bringing so many important – and often little-known – true stories to the screen. Among them, “Free State of Jones,” “Jackie,” “Loving,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” “Sully,” “Snowden,” “Masterminds,” and “The Birth of a Nation.”
Now add to that list the very affecting (and effective) “Hidden Figures,” about some African-American math whizzes who were crucial to NASA in the early ‘60s. Given that NASA was still stationed in Langley, Va., and Virginia still had strictly enforced segregation laws, this was not business as usual.
As both director and star of “Fences,” Denzel Washington, well, swings for the fences. And while he doesn’t quite hit a home run, he does manage a solid triple. And, almost as importantly, he brilliantly eases himself through the transition from leading man to character actor/star.
“Fences” is based on August Wilson’s masterful 1983 play which starred a galvanizing bigger-than-life James Earl Jones as Troy Maxson, a garbage worker in late 1950s Pittsburgh. Jones won a Tony for his portrayal, as did Washington for the 2010 revival.
Here’s how you know the new film “Jackie” is working: You move from trying to decide just how credible Natalie Portman’s impersonation is to thinking about anything and everything except that.
Portman, who won a much-deserved Oscar for 2010’s “Black Swan,” doesn’t look in the least like Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (the Onassis connection is still in the future). Portman’s face is more oval, her nose is stronger.
As Keith Parker exits MARTA and Nat Ford leads APTA, transit holds key to Atlanta’s and nation’s futureOctober 16, 2017 - 7:35 pm
Group seeking to find – and restore – the Flint River near the airportOctober 9, 2017 - 4:42 pm
GeorgiaForward is changing the game by finding consensus statewideOctober 1, 2017 - 10:27 pm
Look to South Africa for guidance in reviewing Atlanta’s Confederate icons, panelist suggestsOctober 18, 2017 - 11:03 pm
Atlanta to donate $100,000 for medical supplies for survivors of Hurricane MariaOctober 17, 2017 - 10:11 pm
Governor’s awards for arts, humanities celebrate state’s cultural sphereOctober 16, 2017 - 6:40 pm
