And the show starts in two hours…
“Jeff and Sasha delve into two newish streaming films — Chloe Domont‘s Fair Play (Netflix), a story about a financial-realm power couple (Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich) whose relationship falls apart when the woman is promoted over the dude, and Maggie Betz‘s The Burial (Amazon), a fact-based story about a scrappy lawyer, Willie Gary (Jamie Foxx), taking on a powerful corporation. It costars Tommy Lee Jones.
We also kick up the Killers of the Flower Moon dust, and particularly explore the potential Oscar fate of Lily Gladstone.
Here’s the link.
“American Fiction” (Amazon MGM, 12.15) is simply brilliant – a hilarious and incredibly intelligent crowd-pleaser. I may be jumping the gun a bit, but it's taking the top spot in my Best Picture rankings for the Oscars. #AmericanFiction #mff2023 pic.twitter.com/GFGcPlxWeN
— Mark Johnson @ Middleburg Film Festival (@MarkLikesMovies) October 21, 2023
If you have compassionate feelings about the current plight of God knows how many tens of thousands of Gaza residents and the likelihood that many of them will be killed when Israeli troops finally invade…if you recognize that the number of hardcore Hamas cadres who murdered 1400 Jews on 10.7 and who absolutely have to pay the price for this genocide…when you allow that these fanatics almost certainly represent a modest fraction of the total Gaza population…there has to be some way of saying “don’t slaughter innocent Gaza residents” without sounding like an anti-Semite…there has to be some way to do this.
This is apparently what Dave Chappelle tried to say in Boston the other night, but he’s being attacked for anti-Semitism regardless.
“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner's Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg's tastiest and wickedest film -- intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...