Tag Archives: hollywood movie reviews

Annette Benning and Ed Harris give genuinely fine and sensitive performances as middle-aged lovers; the camera’s honesty strokes each well-earned wrinkle, with tenderness. “The Face of Love”, realistically addresses the paralyzing depth of grief; no one ever truly recovers from a sudden loss; a loved one ripped, in a nanosecond, from one’s life, nothing prepares you for the cauterization of …

The fecundity of director Wes Anderson’s imagination has never been so beautifully luminous, so poignantly poetic as in this enchanting, compelling slice of nostalgia; a pecan of a world and life only treasured,  experienced through the written word and a magical film. “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, influenced by the brilliant, prescient autobiography, “The World of Yesterday” by Austrian, Stefan Zweig …

Weathered, whiskered Liam Neeson is the archetype of a disillusioned, alcoholic Federal air marshal; “Bill Marks”, running on empty, neurotic about flying, shortly after take off on a New York/London flight, receives a “text”, on a secure line, demanding 150 million dollars be transferred to a numbered  account or someone will die every twenty minutes. Hence the flight takes off …

Written, directed and starring George Clooney  as  “Fred Stokes” (George L. Stout), Harvard art conservationist, commissioned by the US Army in 1943 to lead “The Monuments Men”; a team of seasoned curators, architects, historians recruited to capture Nazi- looted masterpieces and return them to their rightful owners. A compelling story based on the 2009, “The Monuments Men” by Robert M. …

If Sunday night’s telecast of the Golden Globe Awards was sequestered in a time capsule and viewed a hundred years from now, people would be dumbfounded; these are actors?  Stuttering, shaking, stammering their inane acceptance speeches; surprised? They have known for months that they have a 20% chance of winning; hire a speech writer, be prepared NOT to make a …

Being a glass “3/4” full person, I  usually find something redeeming in the majority of films I see; although many of you will find this unbelievable,  there are movies I intentionally, deliberately avoid;  anything to do with vampires, hangovers, anchormen, grudge matches, “this is the end”, or Las Vegas. When questioned about the BEST and the WORST films of the …

James Thurber (1894-1961) a short story writer and cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine created “Walter Mitty” and his secret, fantasy world in 1939; when I read this story, decades later, I realized what a masterpiece of literature it was; a pecan that will resonate as long as it is read. Walter Mitty, minus any assertive characteristics, is a universal …

Watching this film I became anxious, agitated, frustrated, finally depressed; it was sad, scary, problematic and painfully pathetic; director/writer Spike Jonze and actor Joaquin Phoenix have created the most unique and soulful character in recent film history. For all its smothering discomfort, this strange and weirdly compelling film tackles a future society’s reliance on electronic connections for business,  personal relationships; …

For its entirety I felt like an outsider watching “Inside Llewyn Davis”; while my friend kevelled, rhapsodized, sang with the actors from commencement to conclusion.  What was I missing? The versatile Coen brothers paint a realistic portrait of the “folk”  music genre, popular in the early sixties; Greenwich Village: grimy, seedy, smoke-filled bars; struggling, starving and in “Llewyn’s” scenario homeless, …

At one point in this enchanting film,  Mrs.Travers (Emma Thompson) and Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) visit Disneyland and ride a merry-go-round; if that is the only scene you experience, it is sufficient; it captures the dormant child in everyone, the child that never dies, that perpetually resides, comfortably ensconced, in the attic of one’s soul; it is joyful, poignant and …