Category: Films

Film Review: Marshall

A portrait of the justice as a young attorney      

NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman, l.) makes a point to the jury while defending his client.

You would be forgiven for assuming that a film that takes as its title the last name of its protagonist would be an all inclusive, sweeping biopic about that individual. But director Reginald Hudlin and the father/son writing team of Michael and Jacob Koskoff have something else in mind with their new picture Marshall. Though named for its central character, the film doesn’t chronicle the entire life of Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice; instead, it focuses on a single case that Marshall tried early in his career. As such, the film plays more like an episode of the Law & Order: True Crime series, and less like a dramatic biography. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something to be aware of should you choose to see this well-crafted picture.
Continue reading “Film Review: Marshall“

Film Review: The Mountain Between Us

Kate, Idris, and a dog battle the elements: Who will survive!?      

Strangers Alex (Kate Winslet) and Ben (Idris Elba) must stick together to survive a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains in heart of winter.

I’ve always been a sucker for a good old fashioned, human-versus-the-elements survival story; 127 Hours is one of my all-time favorite films, and Everest, Into the Wild, and even Alive all captured my imagination and left me pondering the strength of my own survival instinct long after the credits rolled. Director Hany Abu-Assad’s new film The Mountain Between Us isn’t the best of this genre by a long shot, but it’s a decent enough addition to the canon, and, if the genre’s one you enjoy, you can easily add this picture to your viewing queue and feel okay about doing so.
Continue reading “Film Review: The Mountain Between Us“

Film Review: Battle of the Sexes

Stone and Carell serve up a winner in still timely ’70s tennis drama      

Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) play to the crowd at a press conference preceding the Battle of the Sexes.

Opening nearly 44 years to the day after the famous tennis match it’s named after, Battle of the Sexes chronicles the much publicized and widely watched (90 million viewers tuned in worldwide) 1973 match between then 29-year-old women’s champion Billie Jean King and former men’s champion 55-year-old Bobby Riggs. Billed as the ultimate Battle of the Sexes, the match became much more than just an exhibition game; it took on a life of its own, and, after King’s resounding defeat of Riggs, it became a touchstone for the growing women’s equality movement of the early 1970s. Husband and wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (127 Hours; Slumdog Millionaire) wonderfully capture the zeitgeist of the period down to the smallest details, and have assembled a stellar cast to bring this often infuriating but always engaging true story to life.
Continue reading “Film Review: Battle of the Sexes“

Film Review: Brad’s Status

A midlife crisis worth watching: Stiller shines in funny and poignant story  

Brad (Ben Stiller, l.) reflects on his life while touring colleges with his son Troy (Austin Abrams). 

Ben Stiller, who can play middle-age angst like no one else (see While We’re Young, for example), is in fine form in writer/director Mike White’s new film Brad’s Status. Although the film’s premise about a soon-to-be-50 straight white man facing an existential crisis as he grapples with his life choices may sound like the epitome of naval-gazing white privilege, the picture touches on some universal themes with sensitivity and wry humor, thanks in large part to Stiller’s well-tuned performance and White’s sharp screenplay (White is perhaps best known for the 2000 cult hit Chuck and Buck and this year’s social satire Beatriz at Dinner).
Continue reading “Film Review: Brad’s Status“

Film Review: mother!

If a stranger knocks at your front door…

Jennifer Lawrence’s Mother struggles with hostess duties as Javier Bardem’s poet entertains.

Standing before an unpainted bedroom wall, a young and thoroughly domesticated woman ponders which shade of eggshell will look just so. She mixes up a tester, applies a strip, and steps back to regard her work. Elsewhere an older man inhabits his writing study, conjuring magic onto the page and thence to his readers. Later the two will enjoy her hearty meal, and settle into reading by the fire.

But something isn’t right. A sound, or maybe a feeling, forces the woman to cock her ear. She moves as quietly as possible, propelled by a feeling she can’t explain, to peek in on the man. He isn’t writing. He’s just sitting, waiting, watching. Something isn’t right.

Such is the ominous atmosphere of Darren Aronofsky’s latest film mother!, which only partly succeeds, through the use of the horror genre overlaid with biblical themes, at offering a portrait of female anxiety.

Continue reading “Film Review: mother!“

Film Review: Home Again

Reese goes home again, but that doesn’t mean you have to    

Lillian (Candice Bergen, l.) and her daughter Alice (Reese Witherspoon) delightedly share breakfast with the three total strangers that Alice has let in her home (from l., Nat Wolff, Jon Rudnitsky, and Pico Alexander).

With Home Again, writer/director Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s debut feature, we see that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The daughter of filmmaker Nancy Meyers (The Intern; It’s Complicated; The Holiday; Something’s Got to Give), Meyers-Shyer here copies her mother’s patented feel-good glossy, Pottery Barn-infused style to create a romantic comedy that is blandly harmless at best and ludicrously insipid at worst. That Meyers herself produced the project is no surprise, as the entire picture feels like Mom just handed her daughter the keys to the family car and admonished her to drive it exactly as Mom would.
Continue reading “Film Review: Home Again“

Film Review: Patti Cake$

Straight outta Jersey: Portrait of an unlikely rap star makes for one of the summer’s best films    

Aspiring rapper Patti, AKA Patti Cake$, AKA Killa P (Danielle Macdonald), makes a grand entrance at the pharmacy where her friend Jheri works. 

New Jersey filmmaker Geremy Jasper got his start making music videos, so it makes sense that his first foray into feature films is a picture about an aspiring musician. With Patti Cake$, Jasper draws on both his New Jersey upbringing and his music video experience to bring us the thoroughly entertaining story of one Patricia Dombrowski. She’s Patti to her friends and family and Patti Cake$ or Killa P in her brilliantly constructed rap songs, but, either way, Patti is one of the most unique and unforgettable characters to grace the silver screen this year, and her story makes for a great way to close out the summer film season.
Continue reading “Film Review: Patti Cake$“

Film Review: Ingrid Goes West

Tonally uneven film obscures provocative premise   

Social media obsessed Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) moves to L.A. with a plan to befriend her Instagram idol.

If you sometimes worry you may be checking your Facebook and Instagram feeds just a little too frequently, rest assured that you’ve got nothing on Ingrid Thorburn. As portrayed by an exceptional Audrey Plaza, the social media obsessed heroine of Ingrid Goes West becomes a poster child for smart phone restraint. Unfortunately, first time feature writer/director Matt Spicer and his co-writer David Branson Smith run into tone problems, turning what could have been a brilliant satire into something mildly amusing but ultimately unsatisfying, almost to the point of troubling.
Continue reading “Film Review: Ingrid Goes West“

Film Review: The Only Living Boy in New York

Let your honesty shine, shine, shine… Except when it doesn’t, like in this phony, affected picture   

Thomas (Callum Turner) confronts Johanna (Kate Beckinsale), his father’s mistress.

The word “serviceable’ gets bandied about quite a bit in director Marc Webb’s new film about a young writer, which is ironic, since The Only Living Boy in New York is anything but. In fact, serviceable is actually far too kind a word for this hackneyed, derivative embarrassment.
Continue reading “Film Review: The Only Living Boy in New York“

Film Review: Brigsby Bear

Mooney’s funny and poignant film Bears witness to the restorative power of art 

James (Kyle Mooney) dons the costume of his idol, Brigsby Bear. 

If you watch Saturday Night Live regularly, you know that cast member Kyle Mooney seems like the kind of smart-but-nerdy guy who probably spent his middle school years making goofy action-figure based short films with his friends. Fast forward some 20 years later, and not much has changed, though the results are no doubt exceedingly more polished than his junior high efforts. Mooney, along with his 7th grade buddies Dave McCary and Kevin Costello, has made his first feature film, and, fittingly, Brigsby Bear is a charmer that celebrates the healing power of both art and family.
Continue reading “Film Review: Brigsby Bear“