Tag: movie review

The Derby is the oldest continuously held sporting event in America, and its 148thincarnation is this Saturday. So, the timing couldn’t be better to catch “Jockey,” a 2021 film currently streaming on home video. 

As someone – Babe Paley? The Duchess of Windsor? – once said, “You can never be too thin or too rich.” Add “or too white,” and you’ve got the Abercrombie and Fitch mantra of the late’90s and early ‘00s down pat.

I’d follow Thandiwe Newton anywhere, and I’ve been rewarded with such diverse gems as “Westworld,” “Crash” and “The Truth About Charlie.” So, when I came across her name in “All the Old Knives,” well….

The best play I’ve seen this century is called “Jerusalem” and it starred an actor I’d never heard of. His name is Mark Rylance, and I’ve sure as hell heard of him now.  

You don’t need a cheek swab to determine the lineage of “Parallel Mothers.”  It is pure Pedro Almodovar – bold, brilliant and, on occasion, exuberantly bonkers. 

Turn Guillermo del Toro loose in a neo-noir carnival and, visually at least, you get pretty much what you expect: a gorgeously lurid montage of everything from a pickled baby fetus to a howling geek who bites the heads off of live chickens. 

By the time “The 355” was over, I still had a lot of questions. Like, what were two Oscar winners, an Oscar nominee and Norman Reedus’ main squeeze doing in an inoffensive but essentially brainless spy flick?

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” is a very Coen brothers’ sentiment. So, it is perhaps not so surprising that a Coen, in this case, Joel, has tackled the Scottish play, as it is known in the super-superstitious theatre community.

Having spewed out 10-Best lists for almost three decades at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and around a decade or so at the Atlanta Business Chronicle and, of course – the Saporta Report (my personal fave), I could probably make a 10-Best list of my 10-Best lists.

Let’s just cut to the chase. “The Lost Daughter” is the don’t-miss movie of 2021.

Kenneth Branagh has bathed his memory film “Belfast” in a nostalgic patina of black-and white. Alas, that’s not enough to give his heartfelt picture the emotional heft he intends.

In many ways, Jane Campion’s new movie, “The Power of the Dog,” is like a psychological Western from the 1950s. If it had been made back then, it might have starred Kirk Douglas (in full curled-lip mode) and a quivery Anthony Perkins.

With the holidays upon us and the studios releasing their awards-bait biggies, I figured a round-up of sorts might be more useful than a single review.

Lin-Manuel Miranda (yes, the guy who gave us a little something called “Hamilton”) makes his feature directorial debut with “Tick, Tick…Boom!,” an exuberant and heartfelt celebration of all things theater.  Even the sillier and less attractive things – such as theater-geek ego and the-show-must-go-on myopia.

2020 was no time to open a movie called “No Time to Die,” even if it was Daniel Craig’s swan-song outing as 007. So, the Bond conglomerate wisely hedged its bets, trusted in the enduring allure of Craig and launched their movie in theaters in fall, 2021. 

There’s been growing Oscar buzz and even a profile in the New York Times for the new Benedict Cumberbach film.

“Well, he was rather a spectacle, wasn’t he?” says George Plimpton, the Paris Review co-founder whose interviews for an oral biography make up the substance of “The Capote Tapes.”

“Dune” didn’t do it for me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t do it for you.

One reason I’m somewhat neutral on the new documentary, “The Velvet Underground,” may be that I dated a guy in the early ‘70s who loved Lou Reed more than he loved me.