Here are forty reviews (alphabetically) from movies I really liked between 1999 and 2020. Reviews prior to 2005 will be significantly shorter as they were drawn from “Top Ten Movies” lists from those years.
Amy I wasn’t a fan of Amy Winehouse’s music, and I certainly didn’t much care for the lifestyle she projected to the world. But after watching this documentary–drawn to a great extent from video of her early life taken by family and friends–it’s impossible to feel anything but regret that such a person could be eaten alive by her own fame. ?With the exception of a couple of childhood friends who seem to be the heroes of the piece, EVERYBODY wanted something from her–and nobody more so than her own father. It’s was heartbreaking to see how she craved his affection while he saw her as his ticket to the corner of Easy Street and Got It Made Avenue. It’s not coincidental that he originally supported this documentary, but withdrew his support after he saw an early version which made it quite clear that he wasn’t going to be let off the hook for what happened to his daughter. ?It wasn’t entirely his fault, but he did nothing to help. Amy will break your heart and make you listen to her music in a new way. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not is up to you. (2015)
Avenue Montaigne (Fauteuils d’orchestre) The movie was released as Fauteuils d’orchestre, which translates literally as Orchestra Seats–which would have been a more appropriate title. The movie’s proposition is that everyone “wants a good seat” in life. You want to be close enough to the stage so that you can enjoy what happens there, but likewise, you don’t want to be too close. The movie makes you want to learn to speak French because the people on the screen are so interesting that you resent having to look away to read the subtitles. Months after seeing the movie, I still think it’s funny that at one point in the movie, a character played by French actor Christopher Thompson has a sex scene with a young woman whose acquaintance he has recently made. (I told you they were French.) Ordinarily I wouldn’t have found this sufficiently remarkable to comment on, except for the fact that the movie was directed by Mr. Thompson’s mother, Daniele Thompson. Wouldn’t you like to have been invited to the set to watch on the day that scene was filmed? It’s a?Saturday Night Live sketch that practically writes itself. (2006)
Bohemian Rhapsody More responsible reviewers of this movie than I will tell you that the music scenes in the movie (of which there are many) are wonderful, and the rest of the movie that unpacks Freddie Mercury’s personal life is boring. Well, duh. Have those reviewers never heard that performers are never more alive than when they’re on stage? That’s certainly the case with Freddie. Other reviewers say that the movie shortchanges Freddie’s life as a gay man, but unless he or she is unconscious, it’s not possible to miss that detail. More petulant reviewers might not be happy unless the entire movie was about Freddie’s sexual adventures, but speaking for the rest of us, we get it. The story is the music, and the music is irresistible. You won’t be able to help smiling at the screen whenever someone’s playing a tune. Speaking of music: This is the last 20th Century Fox movie I’m likely to see before Disney takes over the studio at the end of the year. It’s going to break my heart not to be able to hear the amazing 20th Century Fox Fanfare prior to movies. Laugh if you want, but I feel as if I’m losing a friend. (2018)
Bright Young Things This is a terrific movie about Britain in the heady days before World War I and the beautiful, thoughtless creatures that set its fashions and tastes. It’s fresh and lots of fun. (2004)
CITIZENFOUR Edward Snowden–whistle blower or traitor? Regardless of what you think about him, you should see this documentary. The reportage is unashamedly skewed in his favor, but that’s okay. Listening to him explain himself provides not only valuable insight into what he was trying to accomplish, it also shows the level of paranoia that one can expect to experience if one decides to cross the government in the manner that he did. ?The extent to which your government is able to look into every aspect of your life is a public debate that we need to have as a country. CITIZENFOUR provides a good place to start the conversation. (2014)
The Class is the best movie of the year. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and stars Francoise Begaudeau (who wrote the book that the movie is based on) and a classroom-full of gifted young actors who play his 14- and 15-year-old students. It’s shot in a documentary-style, and as you’re watching it, you can’t imagine that this is scripted behavior. I don’t think this movie could re-made in English to conform to American or British sensibilities. It’s just-French. think Anglo-American the filmmakers would want the teacher to be more visibly noble than Mssr. Begaudeau appears to be here. He makes mistakes; he clearly doesn’t connect with all of his students; and it’s clear that he’s not trying to save anybody. I’ve emailed a couple of teachers I know and encouraged them to check it out. I can just imagine them sitting in darkened theater somewhere and nodding their heads in recognition. (2009)
The Death of Stalin is a small miracle. It’s funny, smart, and audacious to the point of ridiculousness. It was filmed at some expense in Kiev and Moscow, its stars are character actors like Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor and Simon Russell Beale, and there’s not an empowered woman in sight. Clearly, this is not an American movie. It claims to be based on a comic book, and most of its scenes do indeed suggest that somebody had the idea of bringing Mad Magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy” to life. The plot follows the events before and after the death of Stalin rather faithfully but plays them all for laughs. And it is funny. The actors (Buscemi is Kruschev; Tambor is Malenkov; and Beale is Lavrenti Beria, perhaps the funniest of all) are aided and abetted by what appears to be an entire supporting cast of former Bond villains, and it’s clear they’re all having a good time. Jason Isaacs, the evil British colonel from The Patriot, as Field Marshall Zhukov seems particularly demented. Now that it’s wrapped up its five-day run in the theaters, I have no idea where you could see this movie, but be on the look-out for it and prepare to have a great time. (2018)
Dirty Pretty Things I kept thinking (oddly enough) that Ayn Rand would have loved this movie. In it–like her books–things keep getting worse and worse until the end when something so improbable happens that you want to laugh and sigh with relief at the same time. (2003)
Dogma The most thought-provoking film of the year and one of the funniest. Linda Fiorentino, Chris Rock, Janeane Garofalo, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Salma Hayek, Silent Bob, Alanis Morrisette as God–I loved them all. Lose the s*** demon, and we’re talking the top ten list of all time. (2000)
Eight Below?It’s a cross between March of the Penguins and The Incredible Journey–but in a good way. I feel the way I felt about Lilo and Stitch–that someone at Disney finally remembered what made them famous and rich in the first place. (2005)
Election Considering that Matthew Broderick was the high-school know-it-all in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off“, it’s fun to see him get his comeuppance here. I would almost swear that Reese Witherspoon went to my high school. (1999)
Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table Whenever I’m asked, I always say that the best meal I’ve ever eaten was a salt-encrusted redfish served by Chef Jamie Shannon at the Chef’s Table at Commander’s Palace back in the 90’s. When I tell people about it, they look at me like it’s something I’ve made up. At last, I have material to refute them. This superb documentary about the life of Ella Brennan has a thirty-second clip of Mr. Shannon preparing a redfish in this manner and serving it at the Chef’s Table-although not to me, of course. Ostensibly an homage to the grande dame of New Orleans cuisine, this movie is really the story of New Orleans cuisine-and for that matter, American cuisine over the past sixty years. When Ella and her siblings opened the original Brennan’s Vieux Carre restaurant in the 1950’s, New Orleans was described by one food critic as “a city of 500 restaurants and five recipes.” Making a name for herself and her restaurant first with innovative egg dishes, Ella and her family eventually morphed into the juggernaut that became Commander’s Palace, which was in the vanguard of the Cajun and Creole revolution under chef Paul Prudhomme, the “nouvelle cuisine” fad (which I loathed) when Emeril Lagasse ran the show and the whole farm-to-table movement under Jamie Shannon. It’s a remarkable story, and the film makers here tell it well. (2017)
Finding Neverland?If there’s a surprise on this list, this is it. I’ve never seen any version of Peter Pan from beginning to end; I’ve never been a big fan of Johnny Depp or Dustin Hoffman; and I’ve thought that Kate Winslet seems to “miss” as much as she “hits”. Well, she certainly “hits” here–as do four engaging young actors who shine as her children. Johnny Depp is even better than he was in Benny and Joon and Pirates of the Caribbean–the two movies I did like him in. (2004)
Game Changers Who would have thought that the star of the best movie of the year would be– Alex Trebek. Game Changers is a ninety-minute visit with the great game show hosts of the past and present. From Bill Cullen to Drew Carey, they’re all here. Trebek is our host as we visit the homes of Wink Martindale, Peter Marshall, Regis Philbin and others to hear their stories and see outtakes from all the great shows. (Yes, even the infamous, “Where’s the most unusual place you’ve ever made whoopie?” question is here.) As the doc goes along, you find yourself buying into the notion that game shows, even the fancy ones we have now, are a small pool of light in the increasingly dark world of television and video. It was wonderful to spend an hour and a half with the men (yep, they were all men, except for Vanna) who made the good old days good. (2018)
The Ghost Writer Last month, I had an opportunity to catch Chinatown during the “31 Days of Oscar” on TCM, and It was like catching up with an old friend I hadn’t seen in 25 years. I never thought it was the classic that practically everyone else worships because, frankly, I just don’t like Faye Dunaway as much as other people do. And as despicable as he may be, but there’s no one who can tell a story of absolute power corrupting absolutely like Roman Polanski. He did it masterfully in Chinatown, and he does it competently in The Ghost Writer. And here’s something that Roman Polanski knows that you don’t: despite what they tell you on CNN, Europeans are fascinated by Americans. ?It’s too bad for Mr. Polanski that he can’t come to America to make movies like this because America is really his milieu. His work suffers when he tries for similar effects elsewhere. In The Ghost Writer, Polanski gets excellent work from his cast, notably Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall (really) and Olivia Williams. The plot, which affirms the worst fears of Euro lefties about Americans, is solid. Brosnan plays a former British prime minister–let’s call him Tony Blair–who is so unpopular in the UK that he has to come to Martha’s Vineyard to write his memoirs. Along for the ride are his wife (Williams), secretary (Cattrall) and ghost writer (McGregor). In the process of writing the politician’s story, McGregor finds evidence that throughout his political career, Bla–I mean, Brosnan has been a CIA puppet. (If only the CIA could manage American politicians as well.) Mayhem ensues. Except for the woeful decision to film the story on the northern coast of Germany, which bears about as much resemblance to New England as Algeria, this is a terrific movie. (2010)
Good-bye, Lenin! In this is a hilarious (really) tale of the last days of East Berlin, when a troubled young man decides that the fall of the Berlin Wall will kill his mother when she awakens from a coma. ?(2003)
Gravity is sublime. George Clooney’s name might appear above the title in this movie, but it’s really a one-woman movie. In the words of Rajesh from The Big Bang Theory, “Sandy always brings it.” “Sandy,” of course being Sandra Bullock, and indeed she does–never more than she does here. How this movie got made is a mystery to me, but the fact that it was proves that movies can still be magical. Go see it. You’ll be amazed. (2013)
Hairspray PEOPLE OF EARTH, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. Surrender to the relentlessly perky Hairspray. In a year when the big musical offerings were the dreary Across the Universe and Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street–nobody’s idea of a toe-tapping good time, it was refreshing to see something that reminded me that all musicals don’t suck. I’m sorry, but If you went to see it and didn’t just smile at the screen for about two hours, you’re dead. It’s lighter than a cream puff, as bubbly as an ice-cold Tab, and as infectious as TB. The third iteration of the Divine-ly inspired John Waters movie from 1987 doesn’t have the audaciousness of the earlier film or the concentrated energy of the Broadway extravaganza, but it does have is a couple millions volts of starpower from the likes of John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley, James Marsden and newcomer Nikki Blonski. You can’t stop the beat. (2007)
Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauro No Igoku Shiro) An awful title in any language for a great movie. Hayao Miyazaki follows Spirited Away with a wistful tale of a young woman who is turned into a spry old crone by an evil witch–for reasons that escape me. When the eponymous castle floats by, she jumps aboard and changes the lives of several people (and things) whose lives need changing. Voices by Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Billy Crystal and others. See it on the biggest screen you can find. (2004)
Invictus Consider the last six movies from Clint Eastwood (Invictus, Gran Torino, Changeling, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River–to say nothing of Pale Rider, Unforgiven or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), has there ever been a director on such a winning streak? And, has there ever been an actor like Morgan Freeman, who can play God on three occasions, Satan on at least one, and still drive Miss Daisy? ?I don’t think so. Invictus is long (too long); it’s somewhat muddled in its early narrative; some of the art design is unfortunate (especially at the “White House”); and a big chunk of the music is just woeful–but almost everything else is very nearly perfect. Eastwood falls all over himself to make Nelson Mandela appear to be a real person, and I think he succeeds. All of the performances are admirably understated, and the actors–especially Matt Damon– do a good job of working with a tricky dialect. ?This is a special movie, and I recommend it to you highly. (2009)
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Yes, she is. That’s why you won’t mind watching a movie about her that runs to about two hours. This is not the most perceptive bio-pic ever made, but it is revealing in regard to who the woman is and how she lives her life. For me, that was close enough. If you like Joan, check it out. If you don’t, you won’t find much that will make you become a fan. (2010)
Les Miserables I admit it. I loved it. I knew I would, and I did. ?Les Miserables was not only the first show I ever saw on Broadway, I still think it’s one of the best. I was fascinated by the process used to put this show on screen. First, the brains of the outfit made a very good decision not to try just to film the stage show. If you’ve seen the PBS presentations of the tenth anniversary concert of Les Miz, you know they can be interesting, but it’s really not a movie. Instead, director Baz Luhrmann rounded up a gaggle of movie stars and asked them to “act” the lyrics. ?The result is a soundtrack that serves the movie very well, although it won’t be something you’ll want to put on the CD player during a long car trip. Also, the makers of the movie knew what they had, so they were wise to focus on the stars. As I said, it’s long, but a full two hours of the two-and-a-half hour running time is spent in very tight head shots of whoever is singing at the time. So in addition to discovering that the kid who plays Marius has a lot of freckles, Russell Crowe has more than a few warts, and Anne Hathaway is indeed a flawless beauty (even with her hair cut off and some of her teeth yanked out); you get to see move stars doing what they do best–playing to the camera. I was not blind to the faults of the movie. I know that Russell Crowe shouldn’t anticipate an assured career in musical theater, and you’d think that a guy who played Gladiator would be able to project more gravitas in the role. You’d be wrong. Also, the computer generated 19th century Paris of Les Miserables was almost as woeful as the one inflicted on The Phantom of the Opera. Les Miserables isn’t for everyone–but I thought it was the best movie of the year. (2012)
Lilo and Stitch I liked this movie so much I went to see it twice. But what really “sealed the deal” was seeing it on a Delta flight in early December. The English channel on my headphones didn’t work, so I listened to it in Spanish. Even though I recognized hardly any of the dialog, I still liked it quite as much as any other film I’ve seen this year. It’s a beautifully drawn fable of the meaning of family, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s as good as anything Disney has ever done. (2001)
Little Miss Sunshine If Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear and Steve Carrell aren’t enough for you (and if so, what’s wrong with you?), go see the movie to see 24’s Phoebe as a beauty pageant coordinator. It will make your day. The movie is lighter than a puff of air. When it’s over, you won’t remember anything about it–only that you smiled at the screen for a couple of hours. (2005)
Manchester by the Sea is a gut-wrenching experience that’s definitely not for everyone. It makes a case for the un-cinematic concept that some things or people–that are broken just can’t be fixed. Why this is such a difficult idea to grasp is beyond me–maybe people just go to the movies looking for hope. Casey Affleck is excellent as Lee Chandler, a local Massachusetts ne’er-do-well who suddenly finds himself as father figure to his 16-year-old nephew when his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) dies. Director Kenneth Lonergan packs enough grief and misery into the movie for another two additional full-length features. There’s lots of angst– teenage and otherwise–as Lee returns to his hometown of Manchester to act as the boy’s guardian and open old wounds that definitely include his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) who–as always–is excellent. Manchester by the Sea is probably too intense an experience for people who think they have their own problems–and I get that. But if you’re willing to risk the journey, it’s worth it. (2016)
Master and Commander: Far Side of the World What? TWO movies about guys on sailing ships with colons in the titles? (Along with Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) That’s got to be a record. And colons might well have been the only body part NOT on display in the brutal and realistic look at war as it was waged at the dawn of the 19th Century. (2003)
Miss Sharon Jones Someday, someone will curate the career of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and I’ll be able figure out when and where I saw them in the 1980’s. I want to say Baton Rouge sometime around 1982, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I’d almost forgotten about her when I saw this documentary on her tribulations as a stage two pancreatic cancer patient a couple of years ago. The movie makers did a wonderful job of tracking her around New York as she did her chemo and tried to maintain relations with the members of the band who have been with her for more than thirty years. Miss Sharon is an example to all of us, and I can’t wait to see her in person at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival this weekend.
Note: I did see Miss Sharon Jones at Jazzfest in May and she was electric. She did a loving tribute to Prince who had died a week earlier. Miss Sharon herself lost her battle to cancer in November 2016. Perhaps Miss Sharon Jones is the perfect movie to embody a tragic year in music when so many of the greats passed from us.)
Moonrise Kingdom If you want to go back and check the record, you’ll see that I was not a big fan of earlier Wes Anderson movies like Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums. Generally speaking, I thought they were absurd without being absurdist, and eccentric for the sake of being eccentric. Truth be told, I think my greatest grudge against those two movies is that in them, Mr. Anderson pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of making Bill Murray not funny. Not so with Moonrise Kingdom. This is a delightful movie about young love (or something like it), old love and being eccentric for the sake of being funny. I loved it. A couple of young actors making their first movie are wonderful as the 12-year-old lovers who set out to put some space between themselves and their oppressors. In typical 12-year-old fashion, they really haven’t thought through their escape plan. They’re on a relatively small island with nothing but a toy canoe and their own feet for transportation. Discovery was always inevitable. The adults are equally fine. I was especially impressed with Bruce Willis (as the island police chief) and Edward Norton as Scout Master Randy, who dialed back their usual acting styles and discovered that less is definitely more. Murray, Frances Dormand and Tilda Swinton aren’t called on to do much, but they shine when they get a chance. Moonrise Kingdom–like Beasts of the Southern Wild–creates an island world unto itself that you would never want to visit yourself–but you’re happy that someone went and brought back video. (2012)
Nebraska It’s a definite understatement to say that this movie speaks to where I live. As the caregiver for an 89-year-old Alzheimer’s patient myself, I totally emphasized with Will Forte’s character in this movie–the son of Bruce Dern, an addled Montana retiree who is thinks he’s won a prize, when in reality, he’s misread a direct mail piece. Forte and Dern take a road trip to Nebraska, and along the way, they stumble into their lives. Great acting all around, but if Dern deserves to nominated for Best Actor, Forte deserves something as well. (2014)
The Passion of the Christ We live in political times, and for better or worse, this movie can’t really be judged on its merits alone. Yes, it’s a good movie– but that it caused literally millions of people to examine and question their faith made it more than just another trip to the multiplex. In my book, that alone should qualify it as a great movie. Will it stand the test of time? Who knows? In the meantime, I’m glad I saw it -twice. (2004)
Saving Mr. Banks In the last couple of days, I’ve seen some newspaper articles dumping on this movie because it paints a flattering picture of Walt Disney. (Maybe the critics arrived late or didn’t notice that the movie was produced and released by something called The Walt Disney Company.) They carp that the movie didn’t mention that Disney was a chain smoker who was tough on labor unions. To which I can only wonder how that knowledge could have enriched this movie–which is wonderful. By now, you probably know that the movie is the story of P. L. Travers and her encounter with Disney as she contemplated the sale of her stories that would eventually be made into Mary Poppins. Emma Thompson is outstanding as Travers, and Tom Hanks is serviceable as Disney. While it may not be the best movie I saw this year, it is by far the most enjoyable. (2013)
Sicario Sicario means “hit man” in Spanish, so you can probably figure out where this movie is going. But if you’re going to see only one movie about the sorry state of America’s border protection this year, make it Sicario. It’s violent, bloody, smart, depressing–and it’s got Emily Blunt. She plays an FBI agent in Phoenix who volunteers for a federal task force to take down a Mexican drug cartel–unaware that she’s being played for a fool–or worse–by representatives of unnamed agencies. Blunt is brilliant and will certainly be nominated for an Oscar, although I don’t think the movie’s writing quite gives her character the oomph she needs to win the prize. Don’t even think about taking a child to see it. (2015)
Spellbound
A documentary?
About the National Spelling Bee?
That was first shown on ESPN?
In 2003?
Are you kidding me?
No! It’s got love, money, heartbreak, and a guy who paid off an entire village in India to pray for his son to win the Spelling Bee. You tell me who the real Master and Commander is! (2002)
Thank You for Smoking is as black as a comedy can be. This is what Aaron Eckhart does best. It’s hard to say that he’s doing a great job of “acting” in the movie because you suspect that this is pretty much the way he is. (2005)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ?There’s lots of buzz about the fine performances in this film by Frances McDormand and Woody Harrelson. While I don’t want to take anything away from them, they are but two in a fine cast of characters, all of whom are at the top of their game. I tend to like Sam Rockwell in almost everything, so it’s no surprise that I think he’s terrific here. I’ve never liked Peter Dinklage in ANYTHING, but I thought he did a fine job. Lucas Hedges is a young actor who seems to be having a moment, and he was great as McDormand’s son who suddenly finds himself thrust into the role of the grown-up in the family. In case you missed any of the trailers that have been playing for the past three years, the thrust of the plot is that McDormand’s daughter was raped and murdered, and the local police were unable to turn up a lead for seven months, leading a grieving and guilt-stricken mother (McDormand) to rent three billboards near her house to castigate the department for its ineffectiveness. The moral of the movie (how refreshing it is to find a movie that has one) is that anger escalates until people start behaving like–well, something else.Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, is a treat (although not for children), and I think you’ll thank me for recommending it to you. (2017)
The Way, Way Back isn’t a great movie, but compared to all the other junk in the cineplexes these days, it looks like Citizen Kane. It’s well-written, well-acted by good actors like Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Allison Janney, Maya Rudolph, and Sam Rockwell who look grateful to be in a movie that’s not trash. A 14-year-old boy who doesn’t know that his father doesn’t want him, joins his mother (Collette) at her boyfriend’s (Carrell’s) beach house somewhere in the Northeast. The experience is so unpleasant that he actually gets a job in a local water park to get away from the poisonous atmosphere at the house. At work, he escapes (and earns the nickname “Pop and Lock”), meeting the wonderful Sam Rockwell and Maya Rudolph who run the park and provide a much warmer family atmosphere than he experiences at home. If you’re looking for a summer movie that doesn’t insult your intelligence, you won’t do better than The Way, Way Back. (2013)
Unbroken Critics’ reactions to this movie from critics have been mixed at best. Most say that director Angelina Jolie has been too worshipful and uncritical of her subject, Louis Zamperini, who ran for the United States in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. He fought in WWII, in which he was shot down over the Pacific, spent 45 days in a life raft with two other men before being “rescued” by the Japanese navy and spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp where he was savagely beaten and worked nearly to death. ?(Mr. Zamperini died in the summer of 2014, shortly after Ms. Jolie had shown him a first cut of her movie.) Well, hell. Do these people really want to know more about the prejudice he experienced as a first generation American growing up in Torrance, California? Do they want to know what the three men did in the raft while they weren’t catching sharks with their bare hands to eat raw? Do they want more information about how prisoners of war treated each other in the camps? ?If so, that’s too damn bad. The movie’s already two-and-a-half intense hours, and that’s plenty of time to discover that Louis Zamperini is an American hero who deserves the respect and affection that Ms. Jolie gives him. Good for her. (2014)
United 93 defies criticism. That it is a straightforward presentation of what happened on that doomed flight is both its strength and its weakness. Yes, it depicts the bravery and nobility of average” Americans. On the other hand, none of the characters are given any background or context, so it’s really up to you to supply your own memories of and feelings about 9/11. The movie’s creators probably thought that there wouldn’t be anyone in the audience who wouldn’t do that anyway, so maybe it’s just as well. For the first time ever, I will give you dispensation to buy or rent the movie and watch it at home, as opposed to seeing it in a theater. It might be too intense for some to sit through in a theater. Whatever you decide, just see it. (2005)
The Way is a film by Emilio Estevez lives at an emotional depth that you probably wouldn’t expect from a member of the Brat Pack. Emilio’s dad, Martin Sheen plays a Los Angeles ophthalmologist who, nearing retirement seems to be pleased with everything in his life–with the exception of his son, who’s pushing 40 and seemingly unable to “find himself.” The son’s efforts in that regard take him to the Pyrenees in France, where he begins the traditional Catholic ritual of El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) to the village of Compostela in Spain. It’s an 800 kilometer journey that most people take on foot. The son dies on the first day of the journey, and when the father comes to France to collect the body, he makes the decision (against the better judgment of practically everyone) to finish the journey in his son’s memory. Along the way, he meets a Canadian woman who says she’s trying to stop smoking, a Dutch glutton and an Irish writer. Individually, they’re all pretty obnoxious, and all they seem to have in common is an inability to escape each other. But along they way, trust and friendship grows, and by the end, we enjoy their company. As much as I like the idea of this movie, I recognize that Emilio isn’t exactly at the top of his game as a storyteller. For example, after the Canadian woman lambastes Sheen for being a smug baby boomer who probably loves James Taylor, sure enough, we cringe at the next frame which is a “country road” montage set to Taylor’s song. Some might quibble of the unabashed Catholicism on display, but I can’t imagine how a film could be made about this subject without some point-of-view about it. Regardless, I liked it quite a lot and heartily recommend it to anyone looking for an original story that’s entertaining and even a little uplifting. (2011)
Wind River Considering the junk I’ve seen this summer and the Coming Attractions I’ve seen for the rest of the year, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this will be one of my three favorite movies of the year. Perhaps that’s not a surprise since Taylor Sheridan who directed this movie also directed Sicario, my favorite movie from a couple of years ago. (See inset left.) I have a friend in Wyoming who says it’s “important.” Maybe, but I doubt it. Wind River starts by telling you that it is “based on actual events,” and ends with a caption that “nobody knows” how many Native American women go missing each year because nobody keeps track of missing women on Native American reservations. That’s troubling, but frankly, I’m not sure that Wind River is a movie that illustrates that point particularly well. But like I said, it’s a really good movie. I can barely stand to watch Jeremy Renner in anything (except Hansel and Gretl, Witch Hunters-weird), but here, he’s quite good as some sort of ranger whose job it is to keep animals safe on federal lands. While tracking mountain lions one day, he finds the body of a girl who’d been raped before walking six miles over ice and snow and eventually dying. He helps a novice FBI agent from Fort Lauderdale, who is literally out of her element in a cruel Wyoming winter and with no help from the local law enforcement community. Elizabeth Olson from Godzilla and other movies, plays the agent with the right mix of confusion, irritation and determination. Wind River is excellent, but not for everybody. Its violence isn’t just physical, and it really leaves you thinking that some people are just lost. (2017)
(UPDATE: Wind River, a production of The Weinstein Company, is almost certain to get skunked at the Academy Awards for reasons that have nothing to do with the movie itself. Sad.)