BLUE NOTE RECORDS: BEYOND THE NOTES
As a jazz aficionado I expected to hear a lot of good music in this documentary and anticipated a certain amount of archival footage and interviews with some of the great musicians who appeared on the Blue Note label…
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
If there were ever a movie designed to please its target audience, Avengers: Endgame is an emblematic example. It assumes that its viewers are thoroughly familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all of its characters, so when one…
PETERLOO: HISTORY IN THE MAKING
Mike Leigh is one of my favorite filmmakers, in part because you never know what to expect from him. He’s given us slices of life (Life is Sweet, Secrets & Lies), character studies (Another Year, Happy-go-Lucky), a lavish period…
SHAZAM! NEVER TAKES OFF
Shazam! wants to be slick and smartassy except when it suddenly chooses to be warm and sincere—like a TV commercial for some medication or life insurance. You can’t have it both ways but this film repeatedly tries to do so.…
US: JORDAN PEELE’S COMPLEX TAKE ON HORROR
Get Out announced the arrival of an exciting and important new voice in American film: writer-director Jordan Peele. We already knew what a talented actor and comedic artist he was, but the originality of this trenchant social satire was something…
‘THE AFTERMATH’ SQUANDERS ITS POTENTIAL
I find the period immediately following World War Two in Europe to be one of the most fascinating periods of the 20th century. It has inspired such great films as Fred Zinnemann’s The Search, Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair, and Carol Reed’s The…
THE MUSTANG REARS UP AND WON’T LET GO
Matthias Schoenaerts has a formidable screen presence. If you saw him in Bullhead (the Belgian film that put him on the map), Rust and Bone, or Far from the Madding Crowd, you know that I mean. The effect of his silent presence is put…
