Writer-director Mike Mills, in 2010’s “Beginners,” reflected on the life and death of his father (wonderfully portrayed by Christopher Plummer in an Oscar-winning performance), who came out as gay at the age of 75. With the affectionate comedy “20th Century Women,” the director now pays tribute to the life of his mother. Although Mills’ mother […]
Film review
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Film review: ‘Elle’
If you’re at all familiar with the career of Paul Verhoeven, from the lurid eroticism of “Basic Instinct” to the bloodsoaked violence of “RoboCop,” you know that the filmmaker takes great pleasure in shocking his audience. Verhoeven’s films have a nihilistic tinge, containing layers of cruelty and inhumanity which the director often presents with a […]
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Film review: ‘Hidden Figures’
The very definition of crowd-pleasing, feel-good
entertainment, the stirring drama “Hidden Figures” celebrates the lives of
three black female mathematicians whose work was essential in the early days of NASA
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Film review: “Passengers”
A new year may have already started, but the films of 2016 will keep trickling into Rochester theaters throughout the next month. But while they make their way here, I’m still catching up on the massive number of new movies released over Christmas week (eight in total), including “Passengers,” from director Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation […]
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Film review: ‘La La Land’
An ambitiously vibrant, often dazzling pastiche of great
movie musicals, “La La Land” is practically impossible to dislike.
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Film review: “Always Shine”
Anna (Mackenzie Davis) and Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) are two L.A. actresses looking to reconnect and repair their friendship while on a weekend getaway to Big Sur, where festering personal and professional jealousies make for a tenser experience than either anticipated. Then things get weird, as the unnerving “Always Shine” descends into a slippery tale of […]
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Film review: “Jackie”
With his first English-language feature, Chilean director Pablo Larraín (“No,” “Neruda”) mixes historical drama, character study, and moody tone poem with just a touch of camp in “Jackie,” the filmmaker’s intricate and enigmatic portrait of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Examining the subjects of celebrity, politics, and the process of constructing history, the film isn’t exactly […]
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Film review: “Rogue One”
The first in a series of stand-alone, spin-off stories set in the Star Wars universe, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is director Gareth Edwards’s spin on what a gritty war movie in that world might look like. Set just before “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope,” the story explains exactly how blueprints […]
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Film review: “Peter and the Farm”
The innocuous title is a bit misleading. Tony Stone’s documentary “Peter and the Farm” is less an educational peek into the life of the American farmer than a darkly existential character study about a broken man coming to grips with his own mortality and the legacy he leaves behind. Peter Dunning is the sole owner […]
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Film review: “Collateral Beauty”
“Collateral Beauty” should come with a warning label. It’s trite melodrama sprinkled with holiday magic, and then drained of character, nuance, and any shred of reality
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Film review: “Miss Sloane”
Jessica Chastain further cements her status as one of the best actresses working today with “Miss Sloane,” the engrossing new political thriller from “Shakespeare in Love” director John Madden. Chastain stars as Elizabeth Sloane — a brilliant but ethically unscrupulous Capitol Hill lobbyist — who as the film opens is being grilled at a Senate […]
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Film review: “Manchester by the Sea”
“Manchester by the Sea” is a
heartbreaking exploration of grief and loss among characters who’ve lost the
tools to process them
