[6] Jodie Foster directs this universal story of holiday family togetherness, warts and all. Holly Hunter stars as a woman who travels to be with her parents for Thanksgiving after just being let go from her job. While she tries to obscure the truth from her mom and dad (Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning), she revels in the rebellious nature of her somewhat-estranged, gay brother …
[7] John Wayne and Robert Mitchum headline this Howard Hawks western about a gunfighter-for-hire (Wayne) who teams up with a drunk sheriff (Mitchum) to help a family protect their land from a rival rancher. The plot to El Dorado was a little hard for me to follow. So many characters are introduced in the first half hour and the way allegiances are formed is a …
[6] Everest is the true story of a deadly 1996 expedition up Mount Everest in which two climbing parties suffered casualties after a fierce blizzard engulfed the mountain with little warning. The film is more of a dramatic biopic than a sensational survival flick, and while that’s normally a good thing, I do wish Everest were a little more suspenseful or exciting. The ensemble cast …
[8] Frances McDormand and Amy Adams star in this ebullient female bonding flick set in the early 1930s, about a recently fired governess (McDormand) who ingratiates herself into the employment of a ditzy actress (Adams). This film, particularly in its first half, is a serendipitous comedy full of witty dialogue and a dash of slapstick. It moves quickly and I was completely caught up in its spell. When …
[6] Chris Pine stars as a young blind man trying to enter the dating world. His brother (American Pie‘s Eddie Kaye Thomas) steers him in plenty of wrong, comedic directions before Pine realizes he’s attracted to the young Indian receptionist at his doctor’s office. The Indian woman (Anjali Jay) wrestles with her family’s customs and is torn between an impending arranged marriage and an unsanctioned …
[7] Saoirse Ronan stars as the title character, an anxiety-ridden, pretentious, troubled — well, normal, I guess — teenager who does lots of teenagery things, like having sex for the first time and trying to get into college. Watching Lady Bird is like being a fly on the wall inside the character’s lower-middle-class home. The central conflict is between Lady Bird and her mother, played compellingly …
[7] James Franco directs and co-stars with his brother Dave in The Disaster Artist. the true story of two men of questionable talent who move to Hollywood and spend millions of dollars making one the worst movies ever made, The Room. Franco emerses himself in the role of Tommy Wiseau, a weird, kinda-creepy dude of indiscernable age and heritage. His accent sounds a little European, …
[7] In this remake of a Swedish film, an L.A. detective and his partner get loaned out to a town in Alaska where night never falls for half the year. While they’re hunting a killer, the detective accidentally kills his partner and tries to cover the truth about the incident. But then the killer starts to blackmail the detective, all while a young local officer does …
[8] Seven months after the rape and murder of her daughter, a grieving mother challenges her local police department to find the culprit when she advertises on three incendiary billboards. Frances McDormand (Fargo) headlines Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which is being advertised as a comedy featuring fowl-mouthed McDormand chewing the scenery and ripping characters new assholes. And to be fair, that’s definitely part of this movie. …
[7] Revolutionary Road explores the dark side of marriage, where husband and wife suffocate in the confines of traditional gender roles and start lashing out at one another. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (together again for the first time since Titanic) service the material very well. The movie wisely avoids too much pointed dialogue, which makes it more of an acting (reacting) showcase. I was …
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