The new animated musical “Sing” from Illumination Entertainment bills itself as containing more than 85 memorable tracks from legendary performing artists and one new original song collaboration from Ariana Grande and Stevie Wonder. When you divide the 110 minutes of the film by 86 songs, that averages out roughly to one song every 78 seconds. A mashup like that plays well as a recurring Jimmy Fallon/Justin Timberlake bit on late-night television, but it’s exhausting and tiresome when stretched to nearly two hours.
Read MoreWith a minimalist style and unadorned simplicity to reflect on racial intolerance, Jeff Nichols crafts “Loving” as a reminiscence of history without the histrionics. Devoid of soapboxes, speechifying, and manufactured swells of forced emotion seen in far too many historical dramas, “Loving” cuts a different cloth, trading in Hollywood glamor for blue collar truthfulness. Nichols brilliantly lets the honesty and grace of Richard and Mildred Loving stand on their own without an unnecessary pedestal. Cite this film as proof that “tell it like it is” does not require bombastic noise and volume.
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