Tender film about Korean immigrants a deceptively pretty picture
By Todd Hill
(4 stars out of 5)
Know any good stories? Of course you do! If you’ve lived a life, then you have ready access to the best stories available to tell in the entire world, which are your own. And they’re just as unique as you are.
Writers have been telling lightly fictionalized stories about their lives since the moment they learned how to put ink to paper — or stone to cave wall. This predilection for varied autobiography has been less common in film since movies are so challenging to get made. …
But film features career-best performance by Carey Mulligan
By Todd Hill
(3 stars out of 5)
“Promising Young Woman” is the feel-bad movie of the 2021 film awards season, and a lot of people appear to have a problem with that.
I don’t quite understand why. This is a film about rape, and tangentially the #MeToo movement, which hardly suggests a laugh riot. What are these people waiting for next, a Black Lives Matter musical? Movies about profound social ills are generally not uplifting. What they are, most of the time, are documentaries.
“Promising Young Woman” is decidedly not that. It looks like a candy-colored romp. If you…
Acceptance, community take center stage in Best Picture nominee
By Todd Hill
(4 stars out of 5)
I had no real knowledge of “Sound of Metal” until I learned that the film had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. And that was all I really knew about it when I saw the movie, apart from the barest summation of its plot. I was only aware that it was about a guy who loses his hearing.
Is that the best way to encounter an motion picture, just out of the blue? I’ve always thought so, even though I’ve also known it’s often not possible. But maybe because…
David Fincher’s father would be pleased, but the movie is a slog
By Todd Hill
(2.5 stars out of 5)
It’s never fair to criticize a motion picture because of what it isn’t or what it could’ve been instead of what it actually is. But nothing about life — and certainly film criticism — is fair.
“Mank,” the latest movie by David Fincher and a recipient of a whopping 10 Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, is a love letter of sorts from the director to his late father, who wrote the screenplay back in the 1990s. And it could’ve been great as a book.
Or maybe not, who’s to say…
Aaron Sorkin’s film comes out against injustice
By Todd Hill
(3 stars out of 5)
Watching a movie or series that was written by Aaron Sorkin is a lot like eating at Applebee’s.
By making that remark, I am in no way intending to insult Applebee’s (or Aaron Sorkin, for that matter). I’ve had some thoroughly decent meals at that restaurant chain over the years, sometimes after a basketball game or following a day of shopping or, I don’t know, going to a funeral. …
More nominations meant more recognition for diverse voices, with uneven results
By Todd Hill
Trends in cinema may never fit neatly into decade-long windows, but from the perspective of today it’s clear that a trend that had been building for several years reached critical mass during the 2010s.
Event-scale superhero movies and franchise film properties first became identifiable cinematic phenomena going back as far as the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that they came to truly dominate the box office, each and every year. …
But Chloe Zhao’s film doesn’t tell us how to feel
By Todd Hill
(4 stars out of 5)
Some people say everything happens for a reason, and of course that’s literally true, although that’s not really what they’re getting at.
These people are instead putting their trust in fate, an unseen force that’s dictating the direction of their lives, at least to some unknowable extent. Personally, I subscribe to the school of thought that free will — that is, the choices we’ve made — largely account for how our lives are turning out. I’ll also accept that economic realities may play a role as well.
To its substantial credit, the…
The Netflix movie about a grifty form of elder abuse has no heroes
By Todd Hill
(3 stars out of 5)
A morality tale can’t have it both ways, but “I Care a Lot” certainly does try.
Movies like these always have options, of course, although nine times out of 10 they ultimately wind up reminding us that crime doesn’t pay (even if it does). Fear not, no spoilers are forthcoming concerning this particular film, which dropped on Netflix on Feb. 19, 2021, but after many twists and turns it appears to end the only way it really can. …
Will the Academy give this racially charged film the attention it deserves?
By Todd Hill
(4 stars out of 5)
Violence never solved anything. How many times do we have to hear this message?
Well, as many times as it takes.
Every so often, Hollywood gives us two movies about the same subject within 12 or so months of each other. It happened in 2005–06 with two films about Truman Capote’s writing of “In Cold Blood” (“In Cold Blood” and “Infamous”), and in 2017 with two pictures about the British evacuation of Dunkirk at the beginning of World War II (“Dunkirk” and “Darkest Hour”).
Now it’s occurred again with “The Trial of…
Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek live out income inequality in Amazon film
By Todd Hill
(2 stars out of 5)
To put it as bluntly as possible, “Bliss” (streaming debut Feb. 5, 2021 on Amazon) is the most confusing movie I’ve seen in years. Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” (2010) was certainly a head-scratcher, but not nearly as itchy as this effort.
No filmmaker sets out to make a bad motion picture, of course (there may be a couple exceptions), but there are any number of complications that can cause a film to suffer. A director may run short on money, or worse, on time. The movie’s lead actors can fail to exude any…
Warm3wind
Todd Hill is a former journalist with 30 years of experience, much of it in film criticism, who misses neither journalism nor the film beat.
