Film Review: “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Best reasons to see Scorsese’s new picture? De Niro, DiCaprio, and Gladstone

Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) shares a moment with his wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone).

Much has been made of the length of director Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which clocks in at three hours and 26 minutes. But give the guy some credit: his previous film, 2019’s much lauded The Irishman, ran three hours and 29 minutes. So he’s heard you, and has let you out of your seat a full three minutes earlier this time. What a guy! But seriously–while a few scenes do feel like they could be trimmed, others you’ll wish you could dwell in longer. For the most part, then, the run time becomes a non-issue. The story is so well told that you’ll remain fully engaged throughout the majority of this sobering but absorbing picture.

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Film Review: Miss Sloane

Dark look at American politics also a top notch thriller      

An emotionally fragile Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, l.) is coached by her unflappable mentor and boss Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain).
An emotionally fragile Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, l.) is coached by her unflappable mentor and boss Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain).

When a line is repeated more than once in a film – especially in a film that is a high stakes political thriller – you know the screenwriter is giving you a clue to the film’s secrets. So when ruthless political lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane (a fierce Jessica Chastain) tells us that “lobbying is about foresight, about anticipating your opponent’s moves, and devising counter measures…. It’s about making sure you surprise them, and they don’t surprise you,” take it to heart as you study the machinations of the dueling lobbyists in Miss Sloane, director John Madden’s smart, absorbing new drama.
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Film Review: The Accountant

Convoluted, violent story doesn’t add up to a picture worth seeing   

Accountants Dana (Anna Kendrick) and Chris (Ben Affleck) are puzzled by some discrepancies they discover on the books at a robotics firm.

Ben Affleck has always had a sort of a cold, distant quality; showcasing warmth and deep emotion isn’t his strong suit. Such chilliness is what made him both a decent Batman and so good in a role like the one he had in Gone Girl, in which he played such a standoffish husband that he easily seemed capable of murdering his wife. So it’s not surprising that director Gavin O’Connor (best known for the 2011 cult hit Warrior) would cast Affleck in his new film The Accountant, an action thriller in which Affleck plays Christian “Chris” Wolff, an imperturbable accountant and assassin with a high-functioning form of autism who connects better with numbers than with people. The problem, though, is that O’Connor and screenwriter Bill Dubuque (The Judge) play much of Chris’s condition for laughs, and the Rain Man-as-Jason Bourne premise doesn’t succeed nearly as well as the filmmakers probably hoped it would.
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Film Review: Interstellar

A space opera.  A sci-fi blockbuster.  A heavy hitter.  Just enjoy the ride.

Matthew McConaughey gives the thumbs up to space travel.
Matthew McConaughey gives the thumbs up to space travel.

*NOTICE:  Many people have tried tirelessly to avoid exposure to any spoilers or plot details (or anything, really) regarding Interstellar.  I found it hard to write about Interstellar without mentioning ‘anything, really’, so be forewarned*

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