Reviews

Based on a true story, this film is about acting, not singing. The name comes from the fact that this is film about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at the maximum security prison in Ossining, New York ( Sing Sing). This is a nuanced film that feels like a documentary. It is a biographical film of fiction, but suggests a kind of redemption that may not be entirely real. How many men who are incarcerated find this kind of healing thru acting? Can we truly be reformed/ redeemed without encountering a Higher Power? The directors should get credit for authenticity: they spent alot of time with RTA directors and taught filmmaking to inmates at Sing Sing. This is a quiet but beautiful film that anyone who is interested in theater or Shakespeare would enjoy. “Presume not that I am the thing I was; For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, That I have turn'd away my former self…..” William Shakespeare.

Dances With Wolves was an amazing movie, and after Yellowstone, I thought maybe Kevin Costner had found his stride again. He’s a great actor, but can he direct a high quality movie? Coster funded Horizons with some of his own millions, and I wish him well. But this isn’t anything close to the quality of Dances with Wolves, and it’s slow and dull compared to Yellowstone. He should have stayed on as John Dutton in Taylor Sheridan’s western soap opera. ( he was earning 1 million per episode). I admire his passion and committment. He has wanted to do an epic western for decades, finally did it himself with little backing from major studios. But this movie is a flop even though the scenery is beautiful. It’s a mix of multiple storylines, which isn’t inherently bad, since this can be great literary device ( eg. Vigo Mortensen did something similar in The Dead Don’t Hurt). But this is a weak film with stock characters and melodrama. No storyline is coherent, so it feels like a fistful of Westerns all blended together incoherently. Maybe the next installment will be better, but this is a three-hour marathon. It made me miss the Duttons, and Taylor Sheridan’s ability to tell a gripping story in film.

If you love Westerns and independent films that try to make a point, then you will love this movie. Many viewers found this too complex, and the plot to choppy, but the critics loved this. And this time they were right. Directed and featuring Viggo Mortensen, this is the story of two pioneers in Nevada who fight for love and life on the American frontier. Amazingly, he writes, directs, produces, stars and even composes the score in this movie. Vicky Krieps co-stars with Mortensen, and her acting outshines his. She is a force to be reckoned with, and it’s great to see a strong woman protagonist in a western. The film has a grimy feel to it, befitting the dust of the desert, and shows how difficult this frontier life was. But there is also amazing beauty in this film, with desert landscapes, waterfalls and the ocean. One of the best is the interaction between the co-stars. They show us what they feel rather than saying it, and this creates a circuitous plot line and a deliberately quiet pace to the movie that some may find annoying. The movie also fast forwards and then rewinds ( flash forward/ flashback) and it takes awhile to get use to this, but it makes the storytelling unique and somehow more powerful. This is a movie for adults. There’s some nudity, alot of implied sex, and alot of violence. But the movie is also full of grace and restrained passion for life. The dead don’t hurt, but this movie doesn’t just deal with grief. It ponders whether there is something Transcendent.

This is a predictable but heart warming story that the entire family can watch. It’s a story about overcoming obstacles and a sports triumph. It’s also about golf, but any sports fan would enjoy it. But it pales in comparison to other great movies about golf. For example I thought the The Legend of Bagger Vance was far more moving, even tho’ it wasn’t critically acclaimed ( Robert Redford’s movie starring Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron) But this is a true story, and worth watching. It artfully tells the story of a group of Mexican American high school students, who triumphed over racial barriers to win the Texas state golf championship in 1957. It’s beautifully filmed, even tho’s some of it is corny.

I went to this film in spite of negative reviews by critics, and I’m glad I did. I knew little about Amy Winehouse or her music, and this film is really good. 
Even the critical reviews praise Marisa Bela for her strikingly real portrayal of Winehouse and her singing. This is definitely worth 2 hours if you want to hear amazing music and see a good biopic. But you might be disappointed if you a fan and are expecting an accurate portrait of this artist, since it may gloss over some of the tragedy and pathos. Read about her true story. It's even more depressing than this entertaining movie.

The professional reviews of this movie made me think Liam Neeson was going to do something different than he has been doing in recent movies. Some critics compared this to an existential Clint Eastwood Western. But I left the movie wondering whether this was just a violent Irish revenge story, in spite of Neeson’s quality acting. In The Land Of Saints & Sinners is an artistic and authentic film which portrays the ripples of violence as conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the ’70’s spills into a small town in rural Ireland. I would have understood more of the dialogue if I had watched it at some with subtitles, since the accents are authentic and thick, but this made me feel like I was in Ireland. The Irish town is quaint, and the scenery is gorgeous, which was one of the best parts of the movie. The acting in this movie is stellar, esp. Liam Neeson. On the surface, the theme of this movie is revenge, but the violence contrasts with the peacefulness of rural Ireland and is thought provoking. So is this movie trying to challenge the viewer with questions of moral ambiguity? It has this potential since it combines violence with gradual transformation, and even some complicated and dark redemption. The film is supposed to be a moral lesson about the essence of human nature, but I don’t think it achieves this goal.

Intense and insipid. Boring and and traumatic. Can a movie be both? This one is. I would tell you to skip it, but it gets such good reviews from both critics ( including Common Sense) and the audience that you shouldn’t just take my word for it. You should look for some of the critical reviews. Then skip it and watch Dune, either part 1 or part 2. Or both. At the very least, watch this at home with lots of beer or wine. It doesn’t come close to being  Mad Max: Fury Road, but it does have dunes, the Monster cars and trucks, mutant criminals and pirate like costumes. But it doesn’t have Mel Gibson, Tom Hardy or Charlize Theron. And I’m sort of glad they weren’t in it, since it’s so lame. Anya Taylor-Joy is intense and believable, but this movie feels like one long and traumatic car chase and made me tired. And tired of the sadistic violence. ( I know that’s the genre, but this was just too much and too lame). I’m not a professional moviephile, but there is something missing from this film. Like a bad rip off " batman" story, it's not just the violence that's wrong, there's something missing. Mad Max is violence, but this feels like a B movie. There may be biblical allusions to this movie however, and that is one the few good reasons to spend nearly 3 hours in a movie theater. The movie poses the question: “As the world falls around us, how must we brave its cruelties?” Furiosa offers glimpses of a twisted redemption, but they are mired down in tiresome, repetitive violence.

Wicked Little Letters is a witty and vulgar story set in a 1920 English town. It’s a comedy, but the humor is dry British aristocratic humor. It’s loosely based on a true story about a farcical letter writing scandal. It’s a clever mystery, and the themes are repression of abuse ( from misogyny and hypocritical Christian values ) plus feminism, and rage. The F bomb is profusely used, as are many vulgar terms for sexuality that are part of the “ wicked little letters”. Nothing erotic about this though- it’s meant to be amusing and witty. The funniest scene is when “DIE SLUT” is painted on the main character’s door, and she remarks: “It’s German,” to her daughter, as she quickly opens and closes the door. Something like this actually happened in 1920’s England and it became a nationwide scandal. Handwritten letters full of sexual and crude insults created an uproar. In our culture, the internet has magnified this problem and destroying someone’s reputation online is now commonplace. This is at the core of the story in “Wicked Little Letters”, and the legal and ethical issues remain. This movie is slyly provocative, mysterious and definitely worth watching. It ends with a momentary and humorous exchange between the two adversaries that alludes to reconciliation. One of my favorite reviewers, Alissa Wilkinson from the NYT, noted that the theme is the struggle of women in a patriarchal culture, and that the movie makes us “laugh at the dull-witted prejudiced ( and suppressed) people of a hundred years ago”. But as she wisely points out, are we any better?

I went to see this movie because it gets great reviews from BOTH critics and the audience. But all of these reviewers must be addicted to the kind of “ trauma porn” that Quentin Tarantino was famous for. Read the Common Sense review for details. I agree with this review, but I don't think there's anything " satisfying" about this movie unless you are addicted to trauma porn. Since this movie is produced by Jordan Peele, and directed by Dev Patel, who also stars in it, I had high expectations. And when a movie gets thumbs up from most critics and most lay viewers that’s usually a good sign. I’m not squeamish: I see trauma everyday at work in the emergency department where I work. But films like this, where brutal violence is made to look glamorous, shouldn’t be considered artistic. They are just tasteless and offensive. From the start to finish, this film shows violent medieval level hand to hand combat, and I think there are scenes of every body part being chopped off. Add to this scenes of rape, non stop profanity and child abuse, and you get the idea. There are a few redeeming features, but die hard fans of this genre probably don’t care that this is a modern Indian fairy tale. It tells the legend of Hanuman, a courageous monkey god-type creature who protects the innocent. Dev Patel’s character embodies this monkey god, and initially he endures humiliation and torture to an extreme. But this quickly becomes a revenge film, much more difficult to watch than even John Wick movies. The movie tries to justify this gross violence because he is fighting against crime bosses, as well as social injustice against the poor. Skip this one. Watch Slum Dog Millionaire again, or if you need a dose of “ trauma porn”, watch Pulp Fiction. ( And Google search "trauma porn", so you know what you are prepared).