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The Hornet’s Nest
This is as close as you can (or would want) to come to combat in Afghanistan. Those are slugs whispering by the camera and you can see the very unsimulated fear on the faces of the father and son doing the filming. There is no real story arc (it’s Afghanistan), just visceral, hard-to-watch, gripping, and…
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The French Connection
Probably the Platonic Form of the cop chasing criminals movie. A great star (Gene Hackman), a great supporting cast, a ZERO frills (1.44 run-time) script so tight your jaw will need unclenching by the end, one of the great car chases ever – so good it holds up after five decades – and a dark…
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(Anything But) Babylon
La La Land was about people who take their art seriously. Babylon is about people who don’t. And while Hollywood might always have had more of the latter, Babylon fails because A) people who take their art seriously are a lot more interesting than people who are just screwing around and B) Chazelle doesn’t seem…
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Living
A London-based remake of the Kurosawa classic, Ikuru, with Kazuo Ishiguro doing the screenplay and Bill Nighy playing the lead. This version hits many of the same beats and sometimes does it just as well as the original. If there’s a flaw, it’s in the decision to set the story (like Ikuru) in the 1950’s.…
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Air
How much of Sonny Vaccaro’s inspirational close to MJ is really about Ben Affleck? Ben, after all, knows a thing or two about meteoric rises, the insatiable public need to tear down its heroes, and the long-term price of fame. Affleck is having a well-deserved “moment” right now, and, even better, is delivering consistently good…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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