Ben Foster’s man of the woods lives rogue with his teenage daughter in the damp forests of the northwest.Together they plant, gather, forage, and hide – working to survive and to maintain their quiet lives just outside of civilization. His sleep is plagued by fearful dreams that keep him restlessly moving forward on his inconstant quest.The pacing of this film is unexpectedly slower, focused, examining the realism of an unsteady life in self-imposed exile. Soft-spoken, it floats scene to scene, the trek unforced yet fearful.It isn’t until the daughter, Tom, tastes the stability of a roof and amenities and human interaction that she sees her life as it could be rather that what she is told it must be. The father is the loving protector, but Tom is the stalwart strong, the peace that grounds her father. Needing more than a roof, she comes to realize that refuge lies in more than rescue but in the courage to re-enter reality.
If you’ve waited for the summer blockbuster to arrive, the action is finally here in MI: Fallout.From every Tom does-his-own-stunts Cruise classic rooftop run to helmet-less Top Gun throwback motorcycle ride, the now quintessential action hero must face harder crashes and crazier action, taller towers and gravity-defying thrills.Throw a mustachioed Superman in there and the fists of fury will fly.Now toss in a little romantic tension and the gang of old friends going rogue with Tom yet again in order to diffuse a few plutonium bombs.Add a chopper chase, stormy parachute drops, street races in Paris, and London tower climbs, and you’ve got a #1 summer film.It’s a stunt movie fueled by themes of mercy for the innocent, for the weak, for the one and for the many.It’s a cavalcade of mind-bending feats, each one topping the next. The decent script offers a load of exposition, but enough twists and tension to keep it interesting. The mission, if you CHOOSE to accept it…
You’d be hard pressed to say you’d ever come across a docudrama quite like this one. Fourth wall breaking, narrator switching, truth shaking. The soundtrack compliments as the heartbeat pulses them out of the boredom and the adolescent what if? into the tragedy of consequence.With an I, Tonya tone, this well edited mush of memoirs takes on the tale of four teens who planned a heist and followed through to life-altering ends. The story is true. The interviews are real. The acting is honest and memorable.Then the thematic questions end with a horrible thud and silence – perhaps an intentional disappointment so we viewers recognize ourselves in the boys. We are all capable of madness. We must not follow through.
Jeff Goldblum tried to warn them. He tried to warn us all. He said, , “Life finds a way.”So, as fast as you can add an ellipses to the same movie title, the dangerous become the endangered. In this serialized sequel, the raptor and our old pal the T-Rex reign as as the natural antagonists turned underdogs who must escape island destruction via live volcano lava as well as the grasp of greedy business men and their maniacal soldiers before they face another extinction or worse, weaponization.Predator to prey, this film seeks to prove that all it takes is a muscular raptor trainer, an executive party planner turned activist, and a small agile girl to save both the dinos and the world from an inevitable fate, a fate that was perhaps set the second Dr. Hammond played God in ‘93.
Steve Carell and Emma Stone go head to head in this film about conquering fears and pursuing obsessions. Both are praised for their wins, but both win at a cost.Stone plays Billie Jean King, pro tennis player who took on the known misogynist king of the courts Bobby Riggs, Carell.The centerpiece of this pastel tapestry of human experiences shows the dedication to a sport, body and soul. Then it outlines the match with glimpses at secret inner lives and choices that guide both down very different life paths.Billie Jean has an affair with her hairdresser and ends her marriage. Meanwhile, Bobby allows his gambling addiction to separate him from his wife and child – his sole place of refuge and sanity.Both players pursue what they admit to being temporary, unhealthy choices.Both, despite wins and losses, obsess and fight and decompress in ways they know they shouldn’t and find themselves wallowing in shame.Riggs’ loudmouth, public persona is nothing like his true man at home.
Fortunately for these characters, they are deeply loved by people who refuse to give up on them even when offered the loser’s role of 2nd place. This may be the truth of the film. It’s not about the win or a loss for feminism. It’s a sad two hour story, beautifully told, that offers hope for all even after bad choices, and redemption if unconditional love is accepted.
Joe Wright has directed some of the most beautiful films I have been privileged to watch. In Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, even Atonement (despite the story I wasn’t fond of), he captures moments and immortalizes them, choreographs whole sequences with the score, and creates large-scale spectacles.
My jaw dropped in this film when in a single scene we, the audience members, watch bird’s-eye from an aircraft the bombing of the French landscape as refugees flee, then that war-torn countryside somehow transposes becoming the face of a dead soldier. Unbelievable filmmaking. Sobering. Critical. Visually incomparable.
He never forgets his audience. He treats them to and allows them to witness intimate moments of curiosity, sorrow, grace. The Churchills as a couple, lunches with the King, arguments in the war room that changed the course of history, all of these plots offer a deeper understanding of the man in every frame.Churchill comes into power as England’s Prime Minister under duress. The country is already at war, and Parliament does not trust him. While they discuss whether or not they approve of Winston as a leader, he is leading a campaign against Hitler.This film frames his first days in office in which he leads Project Dynamo as a secret rescue mission to bring home the British army stranded at Dunkirk. He knows that his next move could mean the fate of England itself, possibly even the world.I thought that I could only love Lithgow as Churchill now, but Gary Oldman brought him back to life brilliantly. His Churchill is gruff and humble, curmudgeon friend. Winston Churchill, so brave and confident, fought two battles at once. He knew what was at stake, and he had the foresight to fill his war cabinet with people who could and would disagree with him. He needed to win the people’s trust, and he was willing to earn it. He also did not tread lightly into war against the Nazi super-force, as was. His brilliant speeches resonated through Parliament halls, on radio announcements, and in his meetings with King George himself.Churchill also drank copiously, smoked cigars constantly, and loved the sound of his own voice. He would have been a bear of a man to live with, yet his wife adored him. She is the quiet heroine of this film. She supports, empowers, teases, challenges, calms, calls out, and desperately loves Winston. Behind this human with the weight of the world on his shoulders is the one person who encourages him daily. She is his rock.Wright wisely places a seemingly inconsequential character, a typist played by the lovely Lily James, into the closest of quarters with Winston. From the bathroom to the war room, she takes dictation, and the world shifts in those few days. Churchill has fascinated me for some time. A few years ago, I visited Blenheim Palace in England. Winston was born in the cloak room. He was not born into royal line or glamorous fame, but this vast estate now boasts his connection with the place. His childhood toy soldiers still stand in battle array under glass. I don’t understand it, but I cannot deny that he was a brilliant strategist. It seems that he was born envisioning war scenarios, playing Risk, knowing what it would mean to take on a threat like Hitler. It seems Churchill was perhaps born “for such a time as this.”
I love Spielberg. I know that simply stating this will force some readers into the spin-cycle of anti-indie argumentation. I can’t help it. We know his war spectacles, his historical bio-pics, of which this is one. I thought I’d get tired of seeing him cast Tom Hanks yet again, but who was I kidding? I love Tom. Spielberg puts fire under pivotal historical moments, bringing them to light so we relive them. I respect those who retell our histories hoping we won’t remake the same mistakes.The Post used to be a smaller publication, fighting for its place, for representation, for a voice. The superpower New York Times took a risk and went to court over printing classified Vietnam war documents. If the Post had not followed suit with the Pentagon Papers, who knows what would have happened to our country during Watergate?Despite the tension and generally strained sentiment towards journalism at present, we do know that without free speech, free press, and our many inalienable rights, our country could author its own demise. These truths, self-evident, must be fought for.I am grateful for films like The Post as they don’t seem to seek to glamorize the institutions so much as the human choices amidst conflict that changed the world. In The Post, Spielberg offers intimate moments of truth from multiple forums: the powerful pressroom – minds racing and typewriters clacking, the factory floor – floor to ceiling printing presses whirring fast over steel typeset to build the hard copy news. You can almost smell the ink, feel the room shaking, squint in the flood light of illumination when people stand for truth and for what they know is right despite threats. This director offers both power and intimacy in the same scenes. Here both are portrayed by favorite actors in memorable and slightly unique character roles. I love Hanks’ sharp sassy news Editor and Meryl Streep’s demure decision maker.She appears almost timid until she comes into her own. Her arc evident, she proves her prowess yet again. She is lovely on screen, unapologetic in her quirks and sentimentality. She is strong in her femininity, gracious in her leadership. I expected more heavy-handed agenda-pushing moments of Meryl on a soapbox standing for equality, but when she questions herself, it is in the most subtle of scenes: sitting in pajamas conversing with her daughter after gently tucking in grandkids. Here she ponders the implications of her past and present, and here she decides to risk all and change the world.
Irreverent, unkempt, and more driven than most. That was Tonya Harding at age 4. And she never really changed.
She was born into a house of torturous verbal abuse and didn’t escape it until her career was over. She tried to change her situation by getting married young but soon found the same life waiting for her, and daily renderings quickly became physical torment.Constant punishment pushed commitment to her craft and broke her down before she had to face her most brutal critics of all: the pristine and cold world class figure skating judges and the media.Skating was her whole life, and she was good. She was arguably even the best. She just didn’t look or sound the part. She didn’t play along. She didn’t represent the code of unwritten expectations held by the world for figure skaters. She was poor and her own other-side-of-the-tracks culture oozed from every whispered profanity, every misplaced hand-stitched sequin, every outlandish song or dance move landing in pose in the center of the ice.She was still the only one who could land a triple axle jump. She did it over and over again. She skated all day, every day. It became her identity, even as her oppressors continued to beat her down.This is I, Tonya. Unabashed, unfettered, and…told from every perspective. It begins in interview mode, the audience in television viewer seats just as they were during the 1994 Olympics when it all went down.
We all remember the incident. We all heard different stories. As I walked into this movie, I was sure that Tonya herself had slammed her opponents legs with a crowbar nearly crippling her. I guess I wasn’t alone.What this film does is beg you to check your sources and get all of the facts before making judgments. It demands empathy from the voyeuristic world awaiting the next failure from anyone in the limelight who fall victim. They become the prey to viewers, the new tormentors, doling out violence and cruel words from box seats hoping for those working hardest to fall.Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, and Sebastian Stan certainly become these living losers. One of the best scenes is Margo puting make-up on in a mirror, fighting tears and trying to smile. She doesn’t cry through her sad, overwhelmingly abusive life. She takes the abuse like she would any physical obstacle and fights harder to win. So, when she finally sits alone before one of her final performances and looses it, we see it all over her face and in her eyes. Her life’s pursuit was approval from a world that was never going to accept her at all.
I’m honestly more torn about this film than any I’ve seen in years. It’s Amelie-gorgeous with deep sea-green color saturation and beautiful acting.The score perfectly pursues the main character through immaculate set pieces – in ancient red velvet theaters and gorgeous 1950’s attic apartments, on city buses trekking rain-soaked city streets, and inside symmetrical science labs.It’s also gruesome, torturous, cruelty thrust upon weak and helpless “others” by power-wielding men. These characters take aim at the broken, the lonely, the unloved, the underdogs.This kind of cruelty, the stuff of pure evil, usually plays out more subtly in movies. The bad guys usually retain glimmers of hope – a redemption factor that causes us to pause, consider the potential for evil we all carry but that we must choose not to act on. In this, Del Toro’s most beautiful monster film yet, he offers the bad guys no redemption, no character arcs, no potential for good. They are all bad, hated from moment one.This is a film about loneliness, a universally understood theme.All characters long for connection. They paint it, discuss it, force it, sacrifice to find it, lie to obtain it, and wait endlessly for it. One lone woman, a petite, wordless girl of routine and whimsy, played bravely by Sally Hawkins, finally acts on her longings and woos the most tortured of all – a creature of the sea. Okay, yes, this is where it gets really odd. Shape of Water is indeed a love story between girl and fishman. The director supposedly saw the old Creature from the Black Lagoon movie years ago and always wanted to give him a love story. This film is surprisingly explicit at times. Scenes that give it the R rating include sexuality, nudity, and gore.Communist sub-plots in the space-race era provide secondary plot structure under-lacing the romance between unseen beauty and aquatic wonder man. The secondary characters prove lovable and crucial to the plot as they too work to overcome their own unappreciated uniquenesses.In the 50’s, having a different skin color or lifestyle choice meant exclusion from society. The painter, played by Richard Jenkins, is the friend who lives next door who remains reclusive, hiding in his own pain until challenged to act heroically.Octavia Spencer is the verbose but trusted confidant. It wasn’t until her character was threatened that I started looking for exits in the theater. I had forgotten my visceral response to the scenes of sudden shocking gore in Pan’s Labyrinth, del Toro’s best known work until now.Guillermo del Toro is a designer, an artist, who sculpts empathy and terror, interweaving both. In this film, he somehow succeeds yet again, proving his adept directorial skills as he offers both horror and romance. The question he poses: Who truly is the monster? Then the classic message resounds when true love conquers all.
One of, if not THE most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. No work like it exists. It’s an experience. 125 artists over 6 years animated 65,000 oil painted frames. An unbelievable task to translate oil to big screen, but it’s an experience not to be missed.It’s Van Gogh’s story in Van Gogh’s style. Each moment a painted canvas, a memoir, a token to his art.Loving Vincent investigates the mysterious events and characters surrounding Van Gogh’s death, presuming based on his many existing letters that he was perhaps murdered though it was called a suicide.Beautifully acted first, then painted, then animated. Audiences play detective as they follow the trail across the French countryside into the very canvases for paintings that made Van Gogh’s short life and career legendary.The film has been widely approved by artists worldwide and by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and by the Musee d’ Orsay in Paris where you can visit many of his great works today.
Ben Foster’s man of the woods lives rogue with his teenage daughter in the damp forests of the northwest.
Together they plant, gather, forage, and hide – working to survive and to maintain their quiet lives just outside of civilization. His sleep is plagued by fearful dreams that keep him restlessly moving forward on his inconstant quest.
The pacing of this film is unexpectedly slower, focused, examining the realism of an unsteady life in self-imposed exile. Soft-spoken, it floats scene to scene, the trek unforced yet fearful.
It isn’t until the daughter, Tom, tastes the stability of a roof and amenities and human interaction that she sees her life as it could be rather that what she is told it must be.
The father is the loving protector, but Tom is the stalwart strong, the peace that grounds her father. Needing more than a roof, she comes to realize that refuge lies in more than rescue but in the courage to re-enter reality.
Splatter: on FILM 