Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (89th Academy Awards) review
My pick: “Pearl,” blending new VR tech with old-fashioned characters and emotions, demonstrating storytelling possibilities that are beginning to open up.
historical
The Great Wall movie review: not to be torn down
Plain pure fun. At its best, it’s Lord of the Rings meets Aliens, with incredible imaginative grandeur and genuinely breathtaking 3D depth.
20th Century Women movie review: sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
Poignant and hilarious and wise, a melancholy ode to a moment when when the world was changing for women (and men)… and how it still and always is.
Denial movie review: a film for the resistance
A terrific legal procedural about defending factual truth and smacking dishonest sowers of doubt. An essential film for our era of “alternative facts.”
Under the Shadow movie review: evil on the wind, and in the home
A sinister tapestry of urban unease and feminist fury that turns an ordinary domestic setting into a place of skulking terror. Original and deeply creepy.
Gold movie review: this mine is tapped out
Not a terrible excuse for entertainment, just very, very familiar, all paradigms that desperately require a shift, in Hollywood and in the real world.
Antarctica: Ice and Sky (aka Ice and the Sky) (La glace et le ciel) documentary review: how we know we are burning the planet
A deeply personal memoir from the scientist with a “wild empathy for the planet” who locked down the human responsibility for global warming.
The Founder movie review: look at what the golden arches hath wrought
Rather brilliant and kind of inspiring until it turns frightening and even sinister. A dark tale of the beginning of end-stage capitalism as profit above all.
Silence movie review: not golden
This overlong, underpowered tale of Christian martyrdom, in which iconography and allusion stand in for character, is a challenge to even the Scorsese faithful.
Live by Night movie review: criminal tedium
Commits the cardinal sin of cinema: it’s boring. Feels like two hours of highlights from a 20-episode miniseries that only hint at a rich story tapestry.
