Category: movies
- Alice’s GazeLosing Alice a series by Sigan Avin. On Apple TV. With Ayelet Zurer, Lihi Kornowski, Gal Toren. **** Losing Alice is one of the stranger things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s a movie about the creative process, the artistic careers of women and men, and the lengths to which people will go to create ...Read more
- Getting Roped InTed Lasso a series by Brendan Hunt et al. On Apple TV. With Jason Sudekis, Hannah Waddington, Nick Mohammed, Juno Temple. **** A suitable subtitle: Portrait of a Doofus. It’s hard to believe that my wife and I spent three or four evenings (once a week, on our Friday movie night) being somewhat exasperated but often entertained ...Read more
- And Talk They DidLet Them All Talk a film by Steven Soderbergh. With Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen, Gemma Chan, Lucas Hedges. Available on HBO Plus. ***** At one point in Let Them All Talk, a movie about three old college friends who do a crossing on the Queen Mary 2, Susan (Dianne Wiest) stops an awkward conversation ...Read more
- Things Will Never Be That Way AgainSound of Metal a film by Darius Marder. With Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cook, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff. ***** I almost stopped watching Sound of Metal during the first five minutes. I’m not a fan of heavy metal and didn’t want to spend two hours listening to what I heard in those early minutes. I didn’t need ...Read more
- Angry White MenBad Day at Black Rock a film by John Sturges. With Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Ann Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin. ***** I’m tempted to say they don’t make them like this anymore, except that they never did. How this movie got made in 1955, when what people really wanted ...Read more
- They Can’t Get StartedShtisel a Netflix series (2 seasons of 12 episodes) by Along Zingman. With Doval’e Glickman, Michael Alom, Neta Riskin, Shira Haas, Zohar Shtrauss. ***** Like everyone else during the pandemic, my wife and I have been searching for streaming series that hold our attention. We’ve been through any number of suggestions—some of which seemed rather desperate—with ...Read more
- Makes the Other One Look GoodRefuge a film by John Halpern. With Martin Scorcese, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ani Tenzin Palmo, Oliver Stone, David Chadwick. **1/2 Zen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch. With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati. Part of BuddhaFest Online. ****1/2. Fifty years ago a ...Read more
- Or Something Like ThatZen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch. With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati. Part of Tricycle’s BuddhaFest Online. ***1/2. I rarely sign up for anything like BuddhaFest, the yearly event that Tricycle puts on, but this year, since it’s strictly virtual, and they’re ...Read more
- GiggedSorry We Missed You a film by Ken Loach. Amazon Prime. With Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor. ****1/2 Sorry We Missed You is a devastating movie about a family unlike that of anyone reading this post (since you have time to read a post on a website). They’re trying to get by in ...Read more
- He Can’t Get StartedNormal People a Hulu Original Series by Lenny Abramson and Hettie Macdonald. With Daisy Edgar-Jones, Paul Mescal, Desmond Eastwood, Sarah Greene. *** I thought this series would be right up my alley. It’s a coming of age story about a young Irishman who wants to be a writer; we see one year of high school and ...Read more
- InconceivablePrivate Life a film by Tamara Jenkins. With Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, Kayli Carter. Streaming on Netflix. ***** I never had a problem getting a woman pregnant. My problem was not getting a woman pregnant. So I’ve never known much about couples failing to conceive. It’s a whole field of medicine these days, and ...Read more
- When Ritual Goes Too FarUnorthodox, a four-part series by Maria Schrader. With Shira Haas, Amit Rahav, Jeff Wilbusch. Netflix ***** Unorthodox is an absolutely brilliant piece of work, and I can’t recommend it too highly. Four episodes of roughly 50 minutes apiece, it shows a woman from an Orthodox community in Williamsburg Brooklyn fleeing her family and taking off for ...Read more
- World of WomenPortrait of a Lady on Fire a film by Celine Sciamma. With Noemie Merlant, Adele Haenel, Luana Bajrami, Valeria Golino. ***** Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set on an estate in 18th century Brittany, and in an early scene an artist named Marianne (Noemie Merlant) travels there, rowed by a group of men; from ...Read more
- Who’s the Killer Now?Clemency a film by Chinonye Chukwu. With Alfre Woodard, Aldis Hodge, Wendell Pierce, Richard Schiff. ***** Clemency is a movie about the brutality of the death penalty. Reviewers have seen it as a character study of the female warden (Alfre Woodard) who carries the penalty out, but it’s much more than that; it takes in the ...Read more
- Happier Simpler Time?Little Women a film by Greta Gerwig. With Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep. **** I’ll start by admitting that, unlike every woman I’ve spoken to about it, I didn’t read the book. A boy reading such a book in my day—the late fifties and early sixties—would have been weird. ...Read more
- What Violence BegetsQueen and Slim a film by Melina Matsoukas. With Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine. Written by Lena Waithe ***** This is a stupendous movie, another absolute must see, by a group of people I hadn’t encountered before (which may be a failing on my part). The acting, directing, and cinematography are all marvelous, but the ...Read more
- Family ReunionThe Irishman a film by Martin Scorsese. With Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Ray Romano. ***** Toward the end of The Irishman, the former union boss and mobster Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) is looking through some photos in a nursing home while a nurse takes his blood pressure. He asks her if she knows ...Read more
- Poverty Has a SmellParasite a film by Bong Joon Ho. With Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeung Jo, Woi-six Choi. ***** Parasite is a movie about the vast gap in wealth that exists in the world today. It takes place in South Korea, but could take place any number of places, including this country. It begins as a whimsical comedy, ...Read more
- TrulyUnbelievable a limited Netflix series by Lisa Cholodenko, Michael Dinner, Susannah Grant. With Kaitlyn Dever, Toni Collette, Merritt Wever. ***** Unbelievable is a series about a serial rapist, a fact which would normally have taken it off my list. I’m interested in crime dramas, like most people, but rape is too hard to take. But Unbelievable ...Read more
- How Could She Doubt It?Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice a film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. With Bonnie Raitt, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne. **** I missed much of the music of my generation. I was still in touch with mainstream culture through my college years (1966-70), and continued to listen to the radio while I ...Read more
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All Shook UpWhat's in a Song? IIWriting for his LifeWhat’s in a Song?Mixed Feelings
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (127)American literature (226)art (123)Buddhism (171)Christianity (132)creative process (262)death and dying (144)meditation (125)movies (167)music (42)race (110)religion (196)sex (187)spirituality (174)the art of narrative (266)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)