VICE: HEIGHTENED REALITY FOR SATIRE’S SAKE
It isn’t difficult to recognize Vice as the work of the man who wrote and directed The Big Short, Adam McKay. This is McKay in dark-satire mode, a far cry from his collaborations with Will Ferrell. He presents us…
MARY POPPINS: GOOD BUT LESS THAN PRACTICALLY PERFECT
I wish the Disney company would stop remaking and rehashing the gems in its vast library. Do we really need a live-action version of The Lion King? Did anyone ask for a sequel to Mary Poppins, one of the best-loved movies of…
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
James Baldwin was eloquent and poetic; he was also a complex and frustrated man who expressed his feelings in both essays and works of fiction. Impassioned filmmaker Barry Jenkins, who won an Oscar for his breakthrough feature Moonlight, has…
THE MULE: CLINT EASTWOOD STILL RULES
Two nonagenarians steal the show in Mary Poppins Returns, but The Mule is a horse of a different color, if you’ll pardon the pun. This is a star vehicle for an 88-year-old actor-director who still commands the screen, Clint Eastwood. It’s a…
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE IS BEYOND DESCRIPTION
For once, a movie lives up to its hype. Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is the most spectacular animated feature I’ve ever seen. This takes nothing away from Disney, Pixar, or Studio Ghibli, but the core idea of creating a living comic…
‘ROMA’ UNLEASHES A FLOOD OF EMOTIONS
Roma is a stunning, often heartbreaking film, but it requires patience to realize where writer-director Alfonso Cuarón is taking us. If you surrender to him, as I did, you will be amply rewarded. It’s a memory piece inspired by…
WIDOWS: REVENGE IS BITTERSWEET
Widows gets your attention right away with something that’s still rare and provocative: a passionate love scene filmed in close-up between an interracial couple, Viola Davis and Liam Neeson. It’s followed by visceral scenes of action and violence in the…
