SO many excellent films came out at the 11th hour-- meaning not until FALL 2018 (ridiculously late I might add), that it has taken me until now to see all the good stuff. Here is a list of my TOP TEN favorite films of 2018. Many of these films allowed us to see ourselves in [...]
The dog days of summer feature two movies based on books that require some navigation through PC muddied waters. BLACKkKLANSMAN is Spike Lee's take on the "true" tale of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, Denzel's son!) the first black detective on the Colorado Springs Police Force in the early '70's who infiltrates the Ku Klux [...]
In one of the more entertaining Oscar nomination ceremonies in recent memory, Andy Serkis and Tiffany Haddish announced the nominations for the 90th Annual OSCARS this morning from California. THE SHAPE OF WATER lead with 13 nominations. By my calculation, there were a few flubs, snubs, & surprises: --Spielberg was snubbed as Best Director for [...]
They didn't make my Five Fave Films of 2017 so far, nor are they all the Boston area Film Critics choices, but here’s another batch of films, like cookies for the holidays-- yummy & crummy; some to be savored, some to be consumed guiltily in the dark, and some cookies, well, should be tossed. [...]
It happened this weekend: The BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS (of which I am a veteran member) met for the 37th time and voted Paul Thomas Anderson's PHANTOM THREAD (which a significant number of critics have not yet seen) starring Daniel Day-Lewis in his ostensible farewell performance as a fictional couturier, the BEST FILM [...]
BLADE RUNNER 2049 continues a tale that asks what it means to be human, but despite being almost an hour longer than the original, is a much more routine experience, building on the first installment without expanding its thematic footprint. The sequel lacks the tension, the mystery, and the emotional resonance of 1982's BLADE RUNNER, but is [...]
A few more SCREEN GRABS in the dog days of summer--and none of the following are dogs: DUNKIRK: If you haven't already, see this masterful and intimate experience of the grueling WWII battle when the Nazis had 400,000 Allied troops-- British, French, and Belgian--trapped on the beach at Dunkirk but they never surrendered; [...]
This was a strange year for movies. I could barely find a thing to watch all summer, and then was inundated with a flood of excellent features in the Fall. No one mainstream film commanded our attention, but smaller, isolated gems shown brightly on a far-flung horizon. ONE of these for me stood far above the rest. Herewith my top five films, in no particular order AFTER my favorite film [...]
The studios continue to save their best offerings for last. So many good movies have come out in these last few weeks, that I've decided to stuff them into holiday grab bags and tell you what I think beginning with the following group of three with more soon to come! JACKIE: Herewith Natalie Portman's stunning, eery portrait of a [...]
If you're still looking for that perfect gift for someone you love who loves the arts, I am passing along this 2016 Holiday Gift Guide, itself a gift from WBUR's The ARTery writers-- and I am proud to be one! This annual gift guide has several stockings full of suggestions in every discipline [...]
