[7] Tom Ford (A Single Man) adapts Austin Wright’s novel to the screen, casting Amy Adams as a gallery manager whose writer ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal) pops out of the blue twenty years after she left him to present her with a new manuscript. The film goes back and forth between recreating scenes from the manuscript, a violent piece titled Nocturnal Animals, and Adams’ character’s present life. As …
[5] {MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!} Ridley Scott returns to the franchise he created with Alien: Covenant, which is equal parts Alien remake and Prometheus sequel. It’s a total retread of the original 1979 film’s narrative — a group of space travelers respond to a signal on a strange planet, discover monsters, and get killed by monsters. The broad strokes are all Alien here, and Scott’s so …
[7] Everyone in front of and behind the camera is back for another go-round in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, a fun time at the movies, even if it falls a tad short of the first film‘s humor and character engagement. This installment focuses around the sudden appearance and identification of Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) father, played by the always-welcome Kurt Russell. Dad reveals …
[10] In picturesque Italy, 1983, a seventeen-year-old boy falls in love with an older man who is working as his father’s research assistant. That’s it. That’s all Call Me By Your Name is about. And it’s marvelous. So many other coming-of-age, coming out, and gay-centered love stories focus on outside forces exerting pressure on the characters. But James Ivory’s (Maurice, The Remains of the Day) …
[7] Jordan Peele of Key and Peele comedy fame takes an auspicious stab at writing and directing a horror film with Get Out, the story of a young black man who starts to get the heebie jeebies after being introduced to his white girlfriends’ family. At first, it’s innocent enough — white people making statements about voting for Obama, loving Tiger Woods, and conceding to …
[8] Writer/director James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) returns to the X-Men franchise after 2013’s The Wolverine and serves up a highly satisfying conclusion for its centerpiece hero. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart return as Logan/Wolverine and Charles/Professor X, respectively. They are joined by young Dafne Keen, playing a child mutant in a 2029 future where mutants have gone nearly extinct. But military-scientist …
[9] Not since 1980’s Ordinary People have we had such a genuinely affecting movie about loss and mourning. In Manchester by the Sea, a man with a tortured past discovers he is the legal guardian of his late brother’s teenaged son. Casey Affleck is remarkable and nuanced in the lead role, playing a character who has repressed his feelings for so long that the mere …
[4] Rogue One is the first of what is sure to be many stand-alone or spin-off Star Wars movies over the next few decades. This maiden venture focuses on the events leading directly into Episode IV: A New Hope, with a young woman trying to redeem her father’s coerced invention of the Death Star by leading a rag-tag team of freedom fighters into hostile Imperial …
[7] J.K. Rowling takes a more firm hand with her franchise moving forward, both screenwriting and co-producing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The new movie takes place 70 years before the events of the other Harry Potter movies, centering around an odd-ball magician named Newt Scamander (Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne) and his misadventures in New York City, where several mischievous and magical creature …
[8] Hailee Steinfeld (Oscar nominee for the Coen Brothers’ True Grit remake) stars as a high school girl on the edge of a nervous breakdown when she discovers her best and only friend has begun dating her brother. Writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig beautifully captures the isolation, anxiety, desperation, and pervasive helplessness of adolescence here, and without letting the film get too dark and dreary. Supporting player …
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