Stillwater (Tom McCarthy, 2021). Stillwater is a fascinating hybrid. It begins and ends like a more realistic, sober-minded riff on one of Liam Neeson’s Taken or Taken-adjacent movies, with a Oklahoma roughneck in place of a well-trained oak tree with … Continue reading Then Playing — Stillwater; Platoon; Freebie and the Bean
Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971). Working from a script by by the great cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Mike Nichols explores the fraught, shifting dynamics of sexual relationship by following a few characters over the course of several years, putting special focus on a randy, rambunctious, sharp-edged man played by Jack Nicholson. The movie may have been most noted for it’s frankness about sexual matters, still remarkable for the time, but it remains engaging because of an even bolder willingness to plumb the emotional rigors of the various characters. Nicholson is especially strong, shrewdly carrying his character from an impetuous, greedy youth … Continue reading Epstein, Greno and Howard, Nichols, Penn, Rush
Coffee for Two 