2filmcriticsFeb 20, 20192 min readShoplifters ★★★ 1/2 The group has its pleasures, including crowding onto a tiny back porch to listen to fireworks they can’t see.
2filmcriticsFeb 12, 20192 min readMinding the Gap ★★★ 1/2 The pleasures of speed and risk, and the flight from the emotional toll of rejection and abuse.
2filmcriticsFeb 5, 20193 min readCold War ★★★ 1/2 Full of unexpected, and often inexplicable, or even perverse, twists and turns
2filmcriticsFeb 1, 20192 min readThe Favourite ★★★ 1/2 If there were an Oscar for Best Ensemble, these three women would be “favourites.”
2filmcriticsJan 20, 20193 min readIf Beale Street Could Talk ★★★ 1/2 Deploying Baldwin’s voice of anger and rage to vilify whites and the American system of justice.
2filmcriticsJan 14, 20194 min readRoma ★★★★ Italian neo-realism meets Federico Fellini--in Mexico City
2filmcriticsDec 18, 20183 min readCan You Ever Forgive me? ★★★ Jack and Lee share a dislike of the elite; she stole one of their coats, he peed on their furs. Welcome to the buddy film
2filmcriticsDec 15, 20183 min readGreen Book ★★★ 1/2 Tony’s community invokes the white tribalism that’s central to today’s contentious racist, anti-immigrant Trumpian political culture.
2filmcriticsOct 27, 20182 min readFree Solo ★★★1/2 A classic introvert, but one who understands himself as an old-school warrior, scales El Capitan with only a bag of chalk.
2filmcriticsOct 26, 20181 min readA Star is Born ★★★In an excessively maudlin penultimate scene, a dog whimpers outside a garage.
2filmcriticsSep 5, 20182 min readBlacKkKlansman ★★★Lee reminds us that the KKK is as anti-Semitic as it is racist.
2filmcriticsApr 16, 20184 min readBlack Panther ★★★ 1/2 The film uses only black characters to present the varieties of moral choice
2filmcriticsFeb 23, 20182 min readI, Tonya ★★★1/2 Succeeds in elevating Harding to the status of a victim, maybe even a heroine.
2filmcriticsFeb 22, 20182 min readMudbound ★★★1/2 “Mudbound” succeeds because of its highly literate script and gripping cinematography.
2filmcriticsFeb 20, 20182 min readDarkest Hour ★★★1/2 Focuses on the psychological dimensions of a series of momentous decisions.
2filmcriticsFeb 11, 20182 min readThe Post ★★★Assertive CEO willing to take on her white male advisors and to risk her new career.
2filmcriticsFeb 11, 20184 min readThe Shape of Water ★★★ 1/2 The beauty and the beast — except that Elisa is no beauty and the creature is something other, and more, than a beast.
2filmcriticsDec 17, 20174 min readThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ★★★ 1/2 The protagonists come to terms with anger, childhood trauma, parental guilt, disfigurement, and impending death.
2filmcriticsDec 10, 20179 min readINTERVIEW with "Blade Runner" Screenwriter Hampton FancherDianne interviews the writer behind the "Blade Runner" films, who's led a life that's the stuff of fiction.
2filmcriticsDec 4, 20172 min readLady Bird ★★1/2 An extraordinary Soarise Ronan is abandoned by Greta Gerwig’s witty but reckless script.