Unfiltered regrets, debated wisdom, and long-held dreams replace the microphone soundbites and the picket signs. Those scenes carry genuinely serene and affecting moments of reflection. They may be shot to look whimsical, but they reach to gild exposed and admitted personal flaws within the central figure. Call this respectful hero worship and the most traditional or packaged film Taymor’s ever made if you must. However, what’s left (political pun intended) is well-earned pride.
Read MoreNot if, but when, you watch The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix, know that, like all movies based on historical events, what you’re watching is a cherry-picked and tidy two-hour dramatization of legal proceedings that lasted just short of 150 days. Normally when that happens, the dramatic license to make an entertaining product has added any number of embellishments for showmanship’s sake. Folks love the challenge, especially in a courtroom movie, of sniffing out the sugarcoating to wonder “did that really happen?” up and down every narrative peak and valley. The crazy thing is the exact opposite is happening here from Aaron Sorkin.
Read MoreOn so many levels, Antebellum and its premise were not anywhere close to good ideas. With every pendulum swinging between power and abuse and between dominance and defiance, this wannabe mindf--k movie does not achieve enough of that aforementioned justification. Even with a determined performance from Janelle Monáe, this is a distressing and unnecessary inquisition with no solid answers.
Read MoreQuite quickly into Roger Michell’s Blackbird, Susan Sarandon stamps exactly what kind of terminally ill character this film intends to portray. You may see the Academy Award winner’s aged luminosity but, let me tell you, this is far from a retread of her beloved 1998 film Stepmom. Her Lily is tired of the pretend pleasantries as she summons her extended family to her and husband’s beachfront homestead. She is done with the constant “who are you” questions, “are you OK” observation checks, and her own cordiality to retort with “glad you’re here.”
Read MoreIt all goes back to encapsulating deeper virtues over surface-thin traits. Women are beyond capable of such independence and profundity, if not more so, than their male counterparts. The women, young and old, who stand to be inspired by Mulan are the true “girls worth fighting for.” No song is required. Noble commitment accomplishes far more.
Read MoreEnjoying an easy little movie like Disney’s The One and Only Ivan shouldn’t take qualifiers, but it does. Two in fact. The first is more black-and-white and depends on your trigger pressure about animals in captivity in this mindful post-Harambe and post-Blackfish world. If your personal pull weight is high enough to condone (over tolerate) and enjoy a circus or a zoo operation, you pass round one. If you consider those settings no better than inhumane minstrel shows, that will lose you here. The second qualifier gets more existential.
Read MoreCharlize would be the one to tell Queen to take their romantic sweetness and shove it with harshness. That tone and timbre works just fine for the Academy Award winner who has been cementing this attitudinal career niche for the better part of a decade. Based on Greg Rucka’s 2017 Image Comics graphic novel featuring the art of Leandro Fernandez, The Old Guard combines its own brew of created legends intersecting modern settings and compulsions. Like its lead, The Old Guard has a toughness completely devoid of anything trite. The narrative screws might not be the tightest, but its aim is deadly enough to draw you in.
Read MoreThere’s something to be said for a film that can constantly exude tautness. Some films will have stress and pressure, but not convey those traits with true tension. An element or two will have general solidity, but not have legitimate, durable steadiness. Like every battened down hatch on a warship cutting through its rough seas, the thrilling course of the new Apple+ Tom Hanks vehicle Greyhound throbs with tightness. Stutter, stumble or hesitate and a punctuating torpedo detonates your lack of focus.
Read MoreJon Stewart’s new film Irresistible holds a broad and powerful mirror up to the lies and guises of America’s election economy. Right when you think an outspoken personality like the beloved former host of The Daily Show is going to shout from his now-taller cinematic pontiff a chosen side or favorite, he remarkably doesn’t. This is an even-handed farce of finger-pointing where both political sides have dirty hands and the media in the middle is wholly and equally complicit. Stewart unleashes this cringing astonishment in a surprising movie that pulls your leg and also very rug right out from underneath you.
Read MoreWilled by Beharie’s solid lead, this small film is a gratifying drama fit for the holiday of its namesake. This feature writing and directing debut of Channing Godfrey Peoples (TV’s Queen Sugar) is an absorbing and honorable celebration of traditions, futures, culture, and family free of harsh judgment and wrongly-placed stereotypes that would have come from disingenuous sources. Miss Juneteenth has as much sincerity as it has struggle. The worthy themes ring true for a positive and willing audience that can pause looking down on pageants and see the bigger preparatory importance.
Read MoreThere is an almost teenage-level of absurdity to it all by the time the finger-pointing sparks conflict. Too much torrid steam in The Departure is off-screen and too little rancor coalesces and festers to truly shock. Within its establishing transitions, the film drops a suggestive cover of “Where Did you Sleep Last Night?” but the whole movie is more Leadbelly than Nirvana with dramatic edge and execution.
Read MoreIn the same way this website touts “every movie has a lesson,” every movie also has its politics. Academy Award winner (damn, that sounds great to read) Spike Lee is never shy about his level of challenging civics, nor should he be. His movies are his earned and rightful rostrums. Stitched with the electrified barbed wire of echoed history, Da 5 Bloods is infused with warranted politics that make it more than its retirement adventure and war movie ingredients. With stern strength in this Netflix release, the rants of old men give way to the treatises of ghosts.
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