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 […]
“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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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