weekend watchlist: when the ghosts won’t shut up
Plus sci-fi noir, sun-fueled madness, and more. (First published August 12th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.)
GoodFellas
The Many Saints of Newark movie review: far from heaven
The performances are terrific, the evocation of the period striking, but it feels redundant, more GoodFellas-lite than The Sopranos, and with several TV seasons’ worth of story crammed in.
Push documentary review: why the rent is too damn high (and how to fix it)
Badass UN Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha probes the global housing crisis and breaks down the complex cause into something readily comprehensible… then enraging. (But she has a solution, too.)
Hustlers movie review: with hearts of steel
GoodFellas, except they’re gals. A cinematic bonbon of delinquent deliciousness that easily wraps us up in charmed complicity. And the exquisite lack of a male gaze means it’s never salacious.
Green Book movie review: a road frequently taken, but a lovely trip nevertheless (LFF 2018)
The tune may be familiar, but it is performed with virtuoso style, its central characters drawn with wit, charm, and complexity and brought to life via the absolutely gorgeous performances of its stars.
Molly’s Game movie review: absolutely aces
Bold, tough, hugely entertaining. Like a new GoodFellas, except about a woman caught up in her own impudence and daring. Jessica Chastain is badass.
American Made movie review: they’re quite bad fellas, in fact
Style and humor galore, and a hugely entertaining performance from Tom Cruise. But should a true story of immense governmental corruption be quite this fun?
Black Mass movie review: men behaving badly… again
A solid execution of a familiar tale, crammed with a likable, watchable cast. But it doesn’t have anything new to say about why men do despicable things.
Legend movie review: badfellas
Tom Hardy is fab, but this is GoodFellas-lite, depicting violent sociopaths as glamorous, even amusing, and lacking all understanding of what made them tick.
The Connection (La French) movie review: not-so-good fellas
With supercool 70s chic and a smart crime thriller vibe, this is a welcome throwback to action dramas of the past, before they chose spectacle over story.
