PARASITE: THE BEST FILM I’VE SEEN THIS YEAR
I love watching movies without knowing much about them; that’s why I avoid trailers and try not to read articles in the run-up to a film’s release. Seeing Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite with a clean slate made it an overwhelming experience:…
CHAPLIN DISCOVERIES—AFTER 90 YEARS
You’d think by now we’d have seen all there is to see of Charlie Chaplin on film—but you’d be wrong. The new Criterion Collection release of The Circus (1928) has a cornucopia of previously-unknown material that makes it a “must” even…
‘JOKER’ IS RELENTLESSLY GRIM
I hated this movie and that’s no joke. (In the spirit of full disclosure, my wife thought it was a great piece of social commentary.) Officially a prequel to the Batman series, this parable takes place in the not-too-distant past, during…
PAIN AND GLORY: THE LATEST FROM ALMODÓVAR
So many of Pedro Almodóvar’s best films have been autobiographical that I hesitate to criticize this one for oversharing, but that’s how I felt at first. The filmmaker even chronicles his medical issues in some detail. I would never…
EDDIE MURPHY SCORES IN ‘DOLEMITE IS MY NAME’
Eddie Murphy is back and on top of his game, playing underground comedian and proto-rap artist Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite Is My Name. It’s a role he was born to play and, to use the vernacular, he kills it. Rudy…
LUCY IN THE SKY: EARTHBOUND
Lucy in the Sky is an ideal vehicle for Natalie Portman, cast as an astronaut who finds outer space thrilling and life back on earth somewhat less so. Affecting a Southern accent and sporting a short haircut, she creates a…
MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN
Alexandre O. Philippe specializes in documentaries about notable movies, including 78/52, a brilliant exploration of Alfred Hitchcock’s shower scene from Psycho. Memory is somewhat different; it isn’t a “making-of” film, as that has been done before. This is more an examination of the…
