Category: biopic
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Breathe [2017] ★★★
Andrew Garfield is superb in “Breathe”, completely immersing himself in the role of Robin Cavendish, a British army captain who was taken ill with polio and given just months to live. His wife (played by Claire Foy of “The Crown”), can’t accept it. How could she? Refusing to give up, they decide to escape the hospital…
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Stronger [2017] ★★★½
“Stronger” may be a Hollywood product, but it is absolutely real, and certainly one of the year’s finest films. It’s also a perfect showcase for Jake Gyllenhaal, who delivers one of the best performances of his career, playing Jeff Bauman, a 28 year-old Boston man who lost both his legs in the 2013 Boston marathon…
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American Made [2017] ★★★
Tom Cruise is on top of his game in this fact-based movie about Barry Seal, a TWA pilot who ended up working for both the CIA and the drug cartel (run by The Pablo Escobar), in the late 70’s and early 80’s. You just can’t make this up, and you just can’t ask for a better…
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The Lost City Of Z [2017] ★★★
An old-fashioned tale of adventure and discovery is probably the last thing audiences will choose to see at the movies this weekend. Damn shame. “The Lost City of Z”, written and directed by James Gray (“Two Lovers”, “We Own The Night”) with a keen eye for detail, is an impressive piece of work, featuring a…
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Hidden Figures [2016] ★★★
I don’t pretend to understand everything about “Hidden Figures”, about three brilliant women who worked for NASA in the early 1960’s, but instead of being put off, I found myself intrigued, even wanting to know more about the work they did following the events of this film. Taraji P. Henson is perfectly cast as a mathematical genius…
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Dalida [2016] ★★★
I can’t remember a time when my mom didn’t play Dalida records in our house. As far as I knew, Dalida has enjoyed enormous popularity all around the world, largely because of hit songs like “Laissez-Moi Danser”, “Helwa Ya Baladi”, “Salma Ya Salama” and many more. But what I didn’t know is that off stage,…
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Jackie [2016] ★★½
I didn’t fall in love with “Jackie”, despite an incredible performance from its leading lady: Natalie Portman. It goes without saying that she’s a great actress, and in the case of “Jackie”, her mesmerizing performance as Jacqueline Kennedy is probably the best, and perhaps the main reason to watch this less than perfect film. A lot…
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The Founder [2016] ★★★
Ever wondered how it all started? How McDonald’s became McDonald’s? Then you’ve come to the right place. Just like its main character, “The Founder” has a fascinating story to tell about the people whose rocky collaboration resulted in one of the most famous restaurant chains in the world. But first, we meet Ray Kroc (Michael…
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Snowden [2016] ★★
Movies derived from recent events are always intriguing to watch because they tend to reveal background stories we don’t know about real-life figures like Edward Snowden, the man who leaked classified NSA documents that show how America is monitoring us 24/7. Reading about this in the news a few years ago made me curious to know…
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Hands Of Stone [2016] ★★½
Another boxing movie is probably the last thing you needed right now, and understandably so. “Creed” and “Southpaw” last year and now “Hands of Stone”, the true story of 1970’s lightweight champ Roberto Duran (a solid Edgar Ramirez), a Panama based boxer who trained hard to get a shot at the world title. His trainer? The…
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Genius [2016] ★★★
Genius doesn’t even begin to describe Jude Law’s performance as Thomas Wolfe, the American writer whose manuscripts were rejected by many publishers in New York in the 1920’s, before his unlikely partnership with editor Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth, in fine form) led to critically acclaimed books. Law’s performance is all the more impressive because of…
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Eddie The Eagle [2016] ★★★
“Eddie the Eagle” is one of the nicest surprises of the year so far. It’s formulaic and unashamedly manipulative, but it’s played with sincerity by the entire cast and, against all odds, it works. It’s the true story of Michael “Eddie” Edwards, a Brit “athlete” with no particular talent, who went on to compete at the…
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Trumbo [2015] ★★★
Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) is terrific and worthy of his Oscar nomination, playing Dalton Trumbo, the famous screenwriter who joined the Communist party in the 1940’s and was blacklisted in Hollywood. As a result, he lost his job and fortune, forcing him to use a pseudonym to write Oscar winning movies like “Roman Holiday” and “The…
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The Danish Girl [2015] ★★★
Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) transforms himself yet again in the superior drama “The Danish Girl”, playing Danish painter Einar Wegener, who became an icon in gender-reassignment surgery back in the 1920’s. Everything adds up perfectly well in Tom Hooper’s dazzling film, which profiles not only Lili Elbe, the woman who emerges from…
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Steve Jobs [2015] ★★★½
Here’s a poke to apple users and non users: “Steve Jobs” isn’t some yawny visual aid on how Jobs came to be Jobs (you can watch the 2013 film starring Ashton Kutcher for that). Instead, it’s a beast of a movie with a full tank of creative gas that keeps it going from start to finish. Sure, it gives…
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The Program [2015] ★★½
The truth was finally revealed in the 2013 documentary “The Armstrong Lie”, in which Lance Armstrong himself opened up about his doping allegations. The documentary was credible and above all, shocking. And by the end, we learned everything there is to know about the fallen idol. That places even greater pressure on the people behind “The Program” to…
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The Walk [2015] ★★★
“The Walk” is a spectacularly entertaining movie, even if you’ve seen the Oscar winning documentary “Man On Wire”, which in turn was based on Philippe Petit’s book “To Reach The Clouds”. If you did catch that terrific documentary a few years ago, you should be familiar with Petit’s story by now, the man who walked between the…
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Pawn Sacrifice [2015] ★★★
A chess movie is probably the last thing you needed right now. Snap out it. This is Toby Maguire like you’ve never seen him before, playing chess master Bobby Fischer, who faced Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) at the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavík, Iceland. The film, directed by Edward Zwirk with a keen…
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Love & Mercy [2015] ★★★
Take a break from Blockbusters and go see “Love & Mercy”, the latest biopic about Brian Wilson, the songwriter and leader of The Beach Boys. I don’t suppose any biopic about Wilson could be definitive, but “Love & Mercy” does a great job. Paul Dano delivers a fearless and sympathetic portrayal of the young man who achieved worldwide success with his band but…
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Big Eyes [2014] ★★★
After “Dark Shadows” and the animated feature “Frankenweenie“, director Tim Burton tackles something completely different for a change. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, he scores yet another bullseye by telling the real-life story of Margaret Keane, the woman whose paintings of sad, big-eyed children baffled America in the 1960’s. The only problem was that her husband…
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