Category: movies
- Yes ButWidows a film by Steve McQueen. With Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Carrie Coon, Liam Neeson. ****1/2 Widows is a movie that is deeply satisfying emotionally and aesthetically without—as far as I’m concerned—making a hell of a lot of sense. Veronica (Viola Davis) is the wife of a career criminal named Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson), ...Read more
- Woman of LettersCan You Ever Forgive Me? a film by Marielle Heller. With Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Anna Deavere Smith. ****1/2 I’ve always been a fan of Melissa McCarthy; I think she’s pretty, funny, sexy, and is one of those actors who lights up the screen the moment she appears, especially in Bridesmaids, the first movie ...Read more
- Colette Before ColetteColette a film by Wash Westmoreland. With Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough. ***1/2 Colette was a great hero of mine when I was young, because she wrote both fiction and nonfiction, she always seemed to write about herself, she wrote about transgressive subjects, and she seemed to discover herself through writing. She made ...Read more
- Go For the MusicA Star Is Born a film by Bradley Cooper. With Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle. **** The first thing I should say is that—somewhat to my surprise—I liked this movie from beginning to end. Bradley Cooper’s Jack was a warm and compelling character; the entire cast was great, including various ...Read more
- Infinity in a Grain of SandForever a series by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard. With Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Catherine Keener, Noah Robbins. ***** Forever is one of the most unusual things I’ve ever seen on a screen. It’s composed of eight episodes roughly thirty minutes long, so my wife and I watched it over two nights. The difficulty with writing ...Read more
- Why Books Are Better Than MoviesThe Wife a novel by Meg Wolitzer. Simon and Schuster. 219 pp. $16.00. **** They aren’t always better. The Godfather is a case in point, though it was a better book than it gets credit for. But The Wife is a much better book than movie not ...Read more
- Right Star, Wrong PrizeThe Wife a film by Bjorn Runge. With Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Max Irons, Christian Slater. ***1/2 The reason to see this movie is for the performances, especially the one by Glenn Close, but also Max Irons and Christian Slater. Jonathan Pryce plays a nebbish named Joe Castleman and does a creditable job, but the man ...Read more
- How Then Should We Live?The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund De Waal. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 418 pp. $40.00 (the illustrated edition) **** Crazy Rich Asians a film by Jon M. Chu. With Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina. **** Scott Fitzgerald: “The rich are different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway: “Yes, they have more money.” Fitzgerald ...Read more
- Ditching the DipshitJuliet, Naked a film by Jesse Peretz. With Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, Ethan Hawke, Azhy Robertson. ****1/2 There are all kinds of nutcase people on the Internet, pursuing this or that weird obsession (like Buddhism, Books, Movies, Life). Now and then I’ve stumbled across someone whose Internet presence resembles a weird rabbit hole. Duncan (Chris O’Dowd) ...Read more
- Who Rolled this Joint?BlackkKlansman a film by Spike Lee. With John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace. *** I seem to be a minority of one, but I found this movie a major disappointment, perhaps because of my high expectations. I’m a Spike Lee fan from way back—Do the Right Thing is an old favorite—and I was looking forward ...Read more
- Most Terrifying Movie Title EverEighth Grade a film by Bo Burnham. With Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton, Emily Robinson, Jake Ryan. ***** By some weird coincidence, in the past two weeks I have watched two movies about single fathers raising thirteen-year-old daughters. I think these are the only two such movies I’ve ever seen in my life. And though I absolutely ...Read more
- Or Maybe Leave a Small OneLeave No Trace a film by Debra Granik. With Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie. ***** Leave No Trace is a marvelous and heartbreaking film, certainly the best movie of the summer if not of the year so far. I’d seen the trailer five or six times and had the vague feeling this was one of those We’re-Better-Than-the-Rest-of-You ...Read more
- Catholic Means UniversalPope Francis: A Man of his Word a film by Wim Winders. **** I was moved and inspired by the new movie about Pope Francis, which opened recently to almost no acclaim whatsoever. The IMDb site has virtually nothing on it, including no quotations, and if any movie ever deserved to have quotations, like maybe every ...Read more
- Arf ArfIsle of Dogs a film by Wes Anderson. With (among many others) Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand. ***** My friend Sally (whom I seem to be mentioning all the time here) recently wrote me the following sentence in an e-mail: “I was trying to think of books, current and always current, ...Read more
- Paranoid LunacyThe Death of Stalin a film by Armando Ianucci. With Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough. ***** Imagine working in an administration whose head man ran things entirely by whim. He liked you one day and didn’t like you the next, and if he didn’t like you he didn’t like the ...Read more
- Movies Movies MoviesFull Frame Documentary Film Festival 2018 My Lineup: The Issue of Mr. O’Dell/ Lovers of the Night; The Farm: Angola, USA;RBG; Owned: A Tale of Two Americas; 306 Hollywood; Three Identical Strangers; Las Nubes/Thy Kingdom Come; The Unafraid; Crime & Punishment. There comes a time when even the great ones have to hang up their spikes, or—before ...Read more
- No But I Read the ComicBlack Panther a film by Ryan Congler. With Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira. **** I hate comic book movies, and almost never go to them. I don’t like movies with super heroes, and people with spectacular special powers. I don’t enjoy the special effects of modern movies, and get tired of preview ...Read more
- Clint to a TThe 15:17 to Paris a film by Clint Eastwood. With Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer. *** This review will be loaded with spoilers, but the event which inspired it was well-publicized when it happened, and has been spoken of plenty in the publicity for the movie. The three men who foiled ...Read more
- She Got Her ManPhantom Thread a film by Paul Thomas Anderson. With Vicky Krieps, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville ***** It’s tough to like a movie when you can’t stand the protagonist. But I absolutely loved Phantom Thread. It’s a candidate for my favorite movie of the year. Reynolds Woodcock—who has a hard name to live up to—is a neurotic, arrogant, ...Read more
- Sex in HeavenCall Me By Your Name a film by Luca Guadagnino. With Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar. ****1/2 First the things I don’t like: Everybody is so good looking. They’re all so intelligent, and talented. This is the kind of movie where people are lying around their Italian villa in the sun, not doing ...Read more
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You Need to be WritingThe Other SideThe River is Freedom, the Raft ParadiseThe Nothing of GodWe Are Stardust We Are Golden
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (114)American literature (197)art (109)Buddhism (163)Christianity (119)creative process (232)death and dying (128)meditation (118)movies (152)music (36)race (95)religion (180)sex (157)spirituality (167)the art of narrative (238)Uncategorized (19)world literature (23)