Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the new film by Martin McDonagh, begins on the outskirts of a small, Midwestern town. A woman named Mildred (France McDormand) notices a trio of dilapidated billboards lined up in a satisfying grouping. She has … Continue reading Now Playing — Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd, 2017). Adapted from a similarly-titled nineteenth century novella by Nikolai Leskov, Lady Macbeth follows a young woman named Katherine (Florence Pugh), who is plopped into a chilly marriage to Alexander (Paul Hilton), the unkind scion of a rural estate. She carves out what satisfaction and happiness she can find, largely through an affair with one of her husband’s brutish employees (Cosmo Jarvis). William Oldroyd, making his feature directorial debut has a fine eye for visual composition and a brave sense of restraint. The film’s most dramatic moments play out with striking understatement, and the score (by … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Lady Macbeth; The Killing of a Sacred Deer; Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
I’ve championed the output of Pixar Animation Studios often and vigorously over the years, but lately I’ve been nervous. The rare studio that wriggled its way into auteur status, Pixar currently sits in the the middle of stretch in which … Continue reading Now Playing — Coco
Greta Gerwig has officially been a film director previously, sharing that role with indie film stalwart Joe Swanberg on the 2008 feature Nights and Weekends. Her writing credits are more extensive, ranging from her breakthrough in the low-key breakthrough Hannah … Continue reading Now Playing — Lady Bird
Approaching the ten year mark of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s increasingly difficult — for me, anyway — to examine the offerings from the comic book publisher turned moviemaking behemoth outside of the context of their making. Taken on its … Continue reading Now Playing — Thor: Ragnarok
Get Low (Aaron Schneider, 2009). A wry comic drama all baled up in folksy charms, Get Low is so thoroughly pitched toward star Robert Duvall’s strengths that its difficult to imagine the film existing in a universe without him. Duvall … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Get Low; Ex Libris: New York Public Library; What We Do in the Shadows
Columbus (Kogonada, 2017). The feature debut from filmmaker Kogonada, who has been justly lauded for video essays on other directors’ work, is an object of understated beauty. Empathetic and honest, Columbus is set in the Indiana city of the same … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Columbus, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Miles Ahead
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a film to be laudably ambitious, resolutely intelligent, clompingly obvious, and archly indifferent at the same time. But here we have Blade Runner 2049, a distant sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 science … Continue reading Now Playing — Blade Runner 2049
On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, with great ceremonial adornments, strode to the center of the playing field of the Houston Astrodome, where a tennis court had been put in place. The event was billed as … Continue reading Now Playing: Battle of the Sexes
I remember when Stephen King’s novel It was first published, in 1986. Then only a dozen years into his career as a novelist — but already claiming nearly twenty books to his credit — King was an unstoppable force in … Continue reading Now Playing: It
Coffee for Two 