VINTAGE SONGS: TIME MACHINES OR MOOD ENHANCERS
I doubt that many J.K. Rowling fans watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them would recognize the voice of Ruth Etting…yet it’s that once-popular vocalist singing “You’re the Cream in my Coffee” who helps set the scene for…
‘LION’ IS TEARFUL BUT FLAWED
What do you call a movie that has a great first act and a moving finale but bogs down on the way to that conclusion? In this case, you call it Lion. I say this with regret, because the…
‘ALLIED’: TRUE-BLUE HOLLYWOOD STORYTELLING
I wish there was another way to say “old-fashioned” and not make it seem like a putdown. I faced this problem discussing Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply and I confront it again with Robert Zemeckis’ Allied. The challenge is…
WARREN BEATTY PROVES THAT ‘RULES DON’T APPLY’
Bravo to Warren Beatty for making an original and highly pleasing piece of entertainment. I’m tempted to call Rules Don’t Apply old-fashioned because it is so beautifully crafted—without those pore-counting macro-closeups of its stars that so many films rely…
DISNEY’S ‘MOANA’: TRADITION RENEWED
The Walt Disney Animation Studio has been on a winning streak, and Moana continues that momentum. Beautiful to behold, especially with its lush South Seas setting, it relies on certain tried-and-true Disney tropes…but with a strong, likable heroine (performed…
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA: AS GOOD AS IT GETS
The annual award-movie avalanche is upon us, a bombardment of advertising, screeners and emails–but at this juncture, Manchester by the Sea is the best film I’ve seen all year. When my wife and I viewed it at the Telluride Film…
THE HAUNTING OF ‘NOCTURNAL ANIMALS’
At one time it was normal to tell a story from beginning to end; now, juggling a movie’s timeline has almost become a cliché. Yet in his second film, (following A Single Man) Tom Ford has not only mastered…
