There’s nothing wrong with Marc Webb’s Gifted. It’s heartwarming without being saccharine, blessed with a strong, feisty performance from young Mckenna Grace.
Tag: Drama
Maudie (Walsh, 2016)
For the most part, Maudie succeeds in shedding light on Lewis’ tenacity, artistic vision, luminosity and endurance. Who would have known that behind the gentle, smiling face and diminutive frame lay years of pain and struggle?
Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959)
Pickpocket is my first Bresson (and I’m certainly not alone in that camp), and though the sheer austerity of his style takes a bit of getting used to, in the end I understand why so many historians deeply admire it—if not love it outright.
In Bruges (McDonagh, 2008)
Welcome to Bruges, where the architecture is pretty, the beer is good, and the hitmen are… philosophical?! Then again, they’re played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, so a level of sophistication is to be expected.
Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999)
Damn. I’m normally a fan of Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman, but their first feature reeks of amateur hour all around.
Lady Macbeth (Oldroyd, 2016)
The Brontës meet Gillian Flynn in Lady Macbeth, a tasty period noir that slithers with menace at each turn.
Get Out (Peele, 2017)
Jordan Peele has crafted a fantastic send-up of some of pop culture’s most famous horror stories (Ira Levin’s, in particular), mixing it together with a screamingly good social satire that skewers those fluffy white, bourgeois liberals who, gosh darn, try so hard to prove they’re not racist, and in the process show that, yeah, they really are (even if unintentionally).
Ingrid Goes West (Spicer, 2017)
Matt Spicer’s Ingrid Goes West juggles a boatload of contemporary issues, whether it be the influx of social media influencers who take pictures of trendy foods, furniture and art as their primary source of income, or people living “auxiliary” lives who crave the world’s approval.
Okja (Bong, 2017)
Awww, this was magical. I have a soft spot for adorable fantasy critters, and Okja the superpig takes the cake. The way Mija, our pint-sized heroine, bonds with her pet is so beautiful, and as an animal lover myself, my heart was swelling at their interactions.
Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger, 1947)
Beautifully haunting, with pulsating eroticism as vivid as the Technicolor onscreen, Black Narcissus is something to watch when modern generic schlock grinds you down and you need reassurance from Saints Powell and Pressburger that film can express the very heights of creative genius when said genius knows what it’s doing.
The Beguiled (Coppola, 2017)
In a sense, I’m glad I haven’t seen the 1971 film prior to watching Sofia Coppola’s version—the inevitable comparisons would have clouded my judgment and prevented me from seeing this work on its own terms. Because truly this is a fabulous and multifaceted splendour, so richly evocative of the bygone past as it is of amorphous gender constructions and motivations.
5 Centimeters per Second (Shinkai, 2007)
I agree with everyone who says this is a gorgeously animated film. The movement of the train, the blowing snow, the gloriously detailed sky—exquisite work.
A Ghost Story (Lowery, 2017)
On paper, A Ghost Story sounds like a goofy joke. A dead man haunting his wife… in a bedsheet with eyeholes? Really?
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais, 1959)
Traumas and memories coalesce in Alain Resnais’ debut, Hiroshima Mon Amour. Though it primarily follows the brief romance between a French actress and a Japanese architect, which is nourished by long, stark conversations, the film is also fundamentally about the aftermath of human destruction.
Dunkirk (Nolan, 2017)
I like Christopher Nolan’s films, though strangely I wouldn’t call him a favourite of mine. His visions are grand and operatic, and he finds ways to marry them to intimate settings and emotions, but I’ve never had the urge to watch his works more than once. Dunkirk may be the film that changes that.
The Lonely Film Critic 