#44 — Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005) Years after giving the performance, Matthew Macfadyen expressed some regret over his experience playing the character fully named as Fitzwilliam Darcy in Jane Austen’s nineteenth century … Continue reading Greatish Performances #44
I greatly admire Hereditary, Ari Aster’s feature directorial debut, but I completely understand how some moviegoers might have developed an aversion to it by the end. There’s no charity from me to those who rankled at the visual resplendent and insidious … Continue reading Now Playing — Midsommar
The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Fede Álvarez, 2018). I have no firsthand familiarity with the Lisbeth Salander novels penned by Stieg Larsson, but I’m beginning to suspect, whatever their merits, they might repel earnest efforts to turn them into Hollywood … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up —The Girl in the Spider’s Web; Old Boyfriends; Hotel Artemis
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Whatever its virtues and flaws, Ari Aster’s Midsommar is one of my favorite film releases of the … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Bear in a Cage
It has been a mere three years since Tom Holland took his first swings as Spider-Man, bringing the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper in Captain America: Civil War. It seems as though the young English thespian has been … Continue reading Now Playing — Spider-Man: Far From Home
High Life (Claire Denis, 2019). For her English-language debut, French director Claire Denis doesn’t play it safe. High Life is a science fiction film about a small group on a shoebox-shaped spaceship that has an exterior vaguely resembling a wood … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — High Life; The Long, Hot Summer; The Hate U Give
Megan Rapinoe Cannot Make This Any Clearer by Barry Petchesky This piece was written and published before Megan Rapinoe scored two goals to lift the U.S. women’s national team past their French rivals in the World Cup quarterfinals, cementing her status … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Right Thing edition
So maybe here’s where the story ends? Nearly twenty-five years after Toy Story launched Pixar into the field of feature film production and almost a decade past Toy Story 3, which seemed to provide an ideal conclusion to the franchise, … Continue reading Now Playing — Toy Story 4
Cop Car (Jon Watts, 2015). Like the product of a mysterious third Coen brother who got some of Steven Spielberg’s DNA spliced into him in utero, Cop Car begins with a simple premise, predicated on the wonderstruck and impulsive decision … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Cop Car; The Predator; The Case Against 8
#43 — Jean Arthur as Bonnie Lee in Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks. 1939) By most accounts, Jean Arthur was miserable making Only Angels Have Wings. One of many aces director Frank Capra had in his usual deck, Arthur … Continue reading Greatish Performances #43
Coffee for Two 