It’s been several hours now since I watched Vice, and my opinion of it has dropped as the time passed. In the moment, it is compulsively watchable. You see McKay hitting highs and lows (frequently from […]
Tag: Drama
The Favourite (Lanthimos, 2018)
I can’t say I was absolutely loving Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest curio about twenty minutes in. A lot is established very quickly, and Lanthimos seems to jump right into his trademark weirdness rather than let it simmer over. […]
Sollers Point (Porterfield, 2017)
Sollers Point is a slice of life—a life that has taken a wrong turn and is trying to get back on track. We’ve seen films of this kind before, most recently the Safdie brothers’ Good Time from last […]
Leave No Trace (Granik, 2018)
What struck me right away about Debra Granik’s latest achievement is its verdant greenness. Most frames hold one hue or another of Nature’s colour, enveloping its two protagonists like a protective shield against discovery. At […]
Western (Grisebach, 2017)
By virtue of its name, a film called Western should have a horse—and it does. It should also have a cowboy, and here’s where things get interesting. There is a cowboy-like figure by the name of Meinhard, […]
We the Animals (Zagar, 2018)
I did not know We the Animals was based on a book until after the film, which is always a sign that an adaptation did what it needed to do. Jeremiah Zagar’s vision offers a wealth of […]
Green Book (Farrelly, 2018)
Before this film began, I sat in my seat terrified that I was going to like it. Though people whose opinions I follow have liked it, others have panned it for reasons that, to me, […]
Happy as Lazzaro (Rohrwacher, 2018)
Alice Rohrwacher won the Best Screenplay citation at Cannes for Happy as Lazzaro, though you could make a strong argument that she deserved more. From what I’ve seen from the unusually strong lineup, the film is […]
The Guilty (Möller, 2018)
Move over, Searching. Papa’s got a truly great single-locale thriller to cheer for this year. I approached it cautiously at first, since it’s set in a police dispatch centre, with a focus on only one officer (commandingly played […]
Searching (Chaganty, 2018)
Reader, when that Up-inspired prologue kicked into gear, with that inanely sentimental score blaring away as a mother was diagnosed with lymphoma and then swiftly killed off, I was tempted to switch this film off and […]
Hearts Beat Loud (Haley, 2018)
Like a knitted sweater, Hearts Beat Loud is a cozy and warm pleasure. Very low-stakes, unencumbered by twisty plotting, and breezily musical at heart. It’s very hard not to fall for its charms, although I can also […]
Bohemian Rhapsody (Singer, 2018)
Is this the real life, or is it just fantasy? Well, folks, I’m sorry to burst your bubbles, but it’s more the latter than the former. Taking a little dramatic license with the truth to […]
Blindspotting (López Estrada, 2018)
I’m over the moon about all these films this year that register BLM issues and the African-American experience in such powerful ways. Blindspotting will sit alongside works like BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Hate U Give and Life and […]
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Coens, 2018)
The Coens’ hot streak continues—and rather surprisingly at that—with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology of six Western-style shorts that are bridged only by their stunningly-rendered vistas and grim depictions of mortality and isolation. I […]
Nancy (Choe, 2018)
Christina Choe’s Nancy is surely one of the year’s most pleasant surprises. Its subject matter is familiar, dealing with a family who had lost their five-year old daughter to a kidnapper thirty years before, and a woman […]
The Lonely Film Critic 