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A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Fred Rogers was by any measure a remarkable man. He was the subject of a superb documentary last year that won a large and appreciative audience. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood doesn’t reiterate the same information and offers instead a canny but irresistible story of its own. Matthew Rhys plays Lloyd Vogel, a magazine writer who gets an unwelcome assignment from his editor at Esquire: a profile of Mister Rogers. He wears his reputation as an investigative journalist like a badge of honor and bristles at the thought of this gig. His first brush with Rogers only confirms what he suspected: the man is too good to be true. This is the key to Neighborhood’s success: Rhys’ character mirrors our own doubts and questions. How on earth does…

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FORD V. FERRARI: THE AUDIENCE WINS

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Ford v. Ferrari has no ambition except to entertain, and it does so exceedingly well. That’s not something I take for granted. A great true-life story, a sharply written screenplay, superior production values, and a perfect cast are the basic ingredients, deftly orchestrated by director James Mangold. We’ve come to expect excellence from Matt Damon, who plays celebrated auto designer Carroll Shelby, but we haven’t seen Christian Bale in a lighthearted role for some time, so it’s a special treat to watch him wearing a smile as maverick race car driver and engineer Ken Miles. This is the story of their knockabout friendship as they take on the challenge of producing a car that can compete with Enzo Ferrari’s to win the grueling 24-hour Le Mans…

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THE REPORT: UNCOVERING HIDDEN TRUTHS

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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All the President’s Men was a game-changer when it came out in 1976 and remains a yardstick by which other topical true-life thrillers are measured. Writer-director Scott Z. Burns freely admits that he drew inspiration from that film and others of that period when fashioning The Report, but he has nothing to apologize for. His film can stand alongside its predecessors as a first-rate piece of journalistic drama. His goal was to produce a timely film that wouldn’t make viewers feel as if they were taking medicine. Here, too, he has scored a bull’s-eye. The film has great narrative momentum and manages to impart a great deal of information clearly without getting lost in the weeds. One reason is the choice of Adam Driver as his real-life…

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MARRIAGE STORY: AN EMOTIONAL KNOCKOUT

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Watching Marriage Story is a transcendent experience. I don’t know how someone puts such an intensely personal story on the screen, but Noah Baumbach has done it in a way that pierces your heart. I’ve never been through a divorce but I feel the pain his leading characters endure—and inflict on each other—as if I were in their shoes. The film is called Marriage Story because a) I suppose Divorce Story would be off-putting, and b) it is the story of a marriage and how it dissolves right before our eyes. Scarlett Johansson plays an actress who has been married to self-absorbed experimental-theater director Adam Driver for a decade. She has been his muse and leading lady in the cloistered world they inhabit. They have an adorable young son, but she is suffocating…

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THE IRISHMAN: MASTERFUL MOVIEMAKING

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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[The Irishman is playing in a limited number of theaters until November 14, when it will debut worldwide on Netflix. The streaming service has taken a lot of hits from the movie industry, but its support of major filmmakers cannot be denied. Exceptional movies like The Irishman, Dolemite is My Name, and the upcoming Marriage Story and The Two Popes are ample evidence that the “new kid on the block” is investing in quality entertainment.] I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t go to a three-and-a-half hour movie in a gleeful state of mind. I hope I will be swept up by the film and remain unaware of the minutes ticking by. In the case of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman I was aware of the…

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REMEMBERING ROBERT EVANS

Leonard Maltin
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Robert Evans didn’t set out to be a movie producer or studio executive. That he became both of those things was just one example of serendipity in his remarkable life. His death today at age 89 will undoubtedly inspire people who knew and worked with him to reminisce. I met him only briefly when I chatted with him at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood a decade or so ago.     The best Robert Evans story is the one he told himself, in a 1994 autobiography called The Kid Stays in the Picture. If you’ve never read it I urge you to listen to the audio version, which at one time was the hottest book-on-tape in Hollywood. Back then it was released on cassettes;…

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AND THE OSCARS GO TO…

Exclusive Leonard Maltin
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I count my blessings over and over again. Having watched the Academy Awards since I was ten or eleven years old, I have to pinch myself whenever I rub shoulders with Oscar candidates at their annual nominee luncheon and the decade-old Governors Awards presentation, which took place Sunday night. It’s a glittery event that represents Hollywood at its very best. This year’s winners (chosen by the organization’s 54 governors) were directors David Lynch and Lina Wertmüller, actor Wes Studi, and actress Geena Davis, who won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to open the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ YouTube channel (imagine!) and watch highlights of the evening. David Lynch had very little to say…

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