Category Archives: 2018

Greta

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Greta                                    2 ½ stars

Greta by writer/director Neil Jordan brings a different twist to the stalker movie genre.  It stars Chloe Grace Moretz as young naïve Frances who having recently moved to New York City finds herself making friends with a French widow named Greta (Isabelle Hubbert) whom she has recently met.  The two met after Frances returned a lost handbag to the woman after finding it left on the subway.  The two seem like a good match since Frances has recently lost her mother.  Of course this is all too good to be true as we find out that Greta has some rather sinister motives that put poor Frances in peril.  Fortunately for her (and the movie) she has a very concerned roommate with good advice and a beautiful apartment in Manhattan who is played by Maika Monroe (from that great horror film It Follows).  The film follows much of the formula that goes along with your standard stalker movies including misfortunes befalling a pet (a dog in this case).  There was nothing especially noteworthy about this film other than the performance by Hubbert who is especially well-suited to the role of Greta.  Also present in the film is Zawe Ashton of Velvet Buzzsaw fame.

First Man

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First Man                             4 stars

First Man from director Damien Chazelle gives us a spectacular look of what it must be like to be on board those early space missions of the sixties.  It follows the career of astronaut Neil Armstrong from 1961 until the Apollo 11 moon mission with all the perils involved in space travel.  I found the moments about the time during the missions to be mesmerizing, but the parts of his personal life to be less so.  Maybe Ryan Gosling was not best suited for the role.  That cannot be said about Claire Foy who played his wife who brought some very painful emotion to her role.  Chazelle is best known for previous works La La Land and Whiplash both of which I found to be superior films.  First Man comes close but just misses that level.  The visual effects were first rate and the movie received a well-deserved Oscar in that category.

BlackkKlansman

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BlackkKlansman                 5 stars

I finally watched the Spike Lee movie BlackkKlansman from last year and have to say the wait was worth it.  This film about a black cop in Colorado Springs in the seventies who infiltrates the local Ku Klux Klan chapter in every bit as relevant today as it is for the times that it portrays.  The movie is quite graphic with the colorful language that the white racists to describe the blacks that live in their city.  There is little left to the imagination here.  And the cops who are working undercover to infiltrate “The Organization” have to appear to be every bit as racist as those they are investigating.  I understand that when Lee was introduced to the book it is based on, he took an immediate interest in it and wanted to include some comedic elements that he is known for and he wanted to relate it to events today.  To that end he shows us the confrontation that happened in Charlottesville in 2017 so that we are reminded that this hateful element of American society is still here and shows no signs of lightening.  Both John David Washington and Adam Driver were excellent in their roles.  And Topher Grace does a creditable job of portraying David Duke, the leader of the Klan.  The film well deserved its Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and will provide plenty of opportunity for discussion and analysis.

Gloria Bell

Gloria Bell            4 stars

Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore as Gloria, a middle aged divorced woman who loves to go to clubs and dance to seventies music is one of the most fun movies I have seen so far this year.  It is directed by Sebastian Lelio, who also directed the previous version, Gloria made in Chile, a few years earlier.  In the movie, Gloria seems happy, but she is dealing with her two adult children, who don’t seem to have time for her and have their own problems.  She also is trying to start a relationship with a newly divorced man, who she likes, but soon finds out that he is certainly not right for her.  Through it all, Moore puts on a convincing performance as a woman who is resilient and won’t allow others in her life stand in the way of her own happiness.  I encourage everyone to see this one while it is still in theaters.

Hotel Mumbai

Hotel Mumbai   4 stars

Hotel Mumbai tells the true story of the Islamic terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India in 2008.  It’s a well done presentation of the absolute terror that the victims of the attack went through facing young men with automatic weapons and hand grenades while having no defense other than running and hiding.  It also depicts the acts of heroism that the staff of the hotel displayed in protecting the guests of the hotel, many of whom are quite wealthy.  The movie doesn’t hold anything back as it shows just how horrifying it must be to be to be experiencing such a terrible event.  I remember well the news of the attack back around Thanksgiving in 2008.  The attack seemed to go on forever before the Indian Special Forces finally killed all the terrorists involved.  At the end of the movie we are shown much about the outcome of the story.  In all well over 100 people were killed across the city.  Of the victims in the hotel, half were the hotel staff.  Also, it took 21 months to restore the damage left behind and reopen the hotel.  If you see Hotel Mumbai be ready to feel more tension and dread than you do from any horror movie.

Shoplifters

Shoplifters          5 stars

I had not heard much about Shoplifters before, last year’s Best Foreign Language film from Japan.  It’s about a very poor family living in a shack in Japan and what they have to do to survive including shoplifting from local stores.  It appears that there is a father, Osamu, a mother, Nobuyo, a grandmother and a teenage daughter and young son.  The couple find a little girl of about five freezing in the cold one night and take her in.  Rather than take her to the police they keep her and care for her as they surmise she was not treated well by her own family.  This movie develops very slowly and I thought that it was a movie mainly about the characters and how they relate to each other without much of a plot, something that shows how the less fortunate live.  However, there are signs along the way that suggest there is more going on here at first glance, so later in the film we learn that there are some hidden secrets that when revealed will test the strength of the ties holding this group together.  I was very presently surprised and impressed with how the film ended.  Rotten Tomatoes rated Shoplifters the second best foreign film of the year after Roma.

Green Book

Green Book        4 ½ stars

I finally viewed Green Book the much acclaimed Best Picture winner by director Peter Farrelly about Tony Lip, an Italian American bouncer from the Bronx who is hired by Dr. Don Shirley a world class black pianist to drive him on a concert tour that takes them to the Deep South.  Set in the early sixties, the travelers must depend on the Green Book, a travel guide published to allow black people find safe places for them to stay and eat in the days of segregation.  The two very different characters must learn to understand each other and deal with their differences to allow them to safely navigate some of the perils they are bound to face in this time of troubled race relations.  While certainly not a perfect movie, it has certain charms that will please audiences and first rate performances from Viggo Mortensen as Tony and Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley.  While the film touches on issues of racism in America showing us some the effects of it, it is not a deep study of the roots of the problem.  Green Book works best as a human drama showing us the value of trust despite our differences.

At Eternity’s Gate

At Eternity’s Gate            4 stars

At Eternity’s Gate is director Julian Schnabel’s portrayal of painter Vincent Van Gogh through the last years of his life, when he produced some of his best paintings.  This film stars Willem Dafoe as the master painter in a truly outstanding role.  The story is not told as a typical biopic however, as it includes some very artistic expressions of the emotions that Van Gogh experiences in his life.  Some of these methods may turn off some viewers, but they certainly are imaginative.  Despite the troubles that Van Gogh has, the movie tries to show us the great optimism he has as he tells how he feels about nature and how it can lead people to meaningful experiences and bring us together.  It also shows how he was misunderstood which led to his being placed in an asylum for a period and the alternate theories surrounding his mysterious death.

Diane

Diane                                    4 ½ stars

I happened upon Diane purely by accident as I was intending to see something different but was foiled in getting to the theater on time.  Diane is a low key movie starring Mary Kay Place as a sixty something woman living in a rural area who selflessly looks after the well-being of those around her who are in need, whether they be sick friends, the poor needing to be fed at the soup kitchen or her drug addicted adult son whose life is a wreck.  At the same time she loathes those who could make their lives better but refuse.  While Diane appears to be a saint there is something in her past that she clearly regrets and has not gotten over how she wronged someone close to her.  This movie is something you don’t see very often in film, a serious treatment of a person from rural America as a realistic subject.  I really got the feeling that this was a real person going through some very troubling times, thanks to the very realistic and emotional performance by Mary Kay Place.  The film was aided by some outstanding performances by the supporting cast as well.  If you run across this film in your search for movies don’t pass this one up.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The Miseducation of Cameron Post          4 stars

I recently saw The Miseducation of Cameron Post, a little seen movie from last year by director Desiree Akhavan and recipient of the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize.  The film tackles the subject of gay conversion therapy for wayward teens in 1993, which was a prevalent thing then.  It stars Chloe Grace Moretz as Cameron Post, the teen girl caught making out with her female best friend who then gets sent off to a Christian gay conversion camp by her relatives.  The topic has been tackled before but feels real here as Moretz gives a convincing performance that is aided by two costars playing teens that she connects with at the camp.  The camp directors (John Gallagher Jr. and Jennifer Ehle) use half thought out methods on their subjects that seem to mainly make the kids feel badly about who they are.  (Each has to create an iceberg on paper that lists what they don’t like about themselves.)  One nice thing about it is how the film is not all heavy drama but includes several moments of comedy (making it different from Boy Erased also from last year).  Miseducation does show us the pain that these young people go through as they experience what can only be described as abuse.  One scene near the end involving a troubled teen is especially shocking.  See it if you can find it.  It is just too bad that so few people saw it when it hit the theaters.