The Red Turtle
The story, such as it is, begins when a man adrift in a storm washes ashore on an uninhabited island. At first, he forages for food, but after awhile he endeavors to escape. He builds a raft. However, at sea, a large red sea turtle swims below and smashes the boat from underneath. The man […]
Fences
What playwright August Wilson presents in Fences is a portrait of the African-American experience. This is an ensemble piece as seen through the eyes of Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington). The setting is 1957 in the backyard of an urban home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory […]
The Founder
McDonald’s is so ubiquitous that it’s hard to believe that at one time the very concept of fast food was a revolutionary idea. Today the global foodservice retailer employs 1.9 million people. It’s the second world’s largest private employer after Walmart. The humble beginnings of a multi-billion dollar empire would be a compelling saga in […]
A Monster Calls
A Monster Calls establishes its narrative with a question. The deep intonations of Liam Neeson articulate “How does the story begin? It begins like so many stories. With a boy. Too old to be a kid. Too young to be a man. And a nightmare.” If I may paraphrase that preface, this movie is too […]
Hidden Figures
The contributions of three African American women to the U.S. space program in the 1950s is the subject of Hidden Figures. The central protagonist of this biography is Katherine G. Johnson, the mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury when John Glenn made three orbits around the Earth in 1962. She worked in the […]
Lion
Lion wrecked me. More specifically, it captivated my feelings by extracting genuine emotion. Although he’s directed some TV (Top of the Lake on the Sundance Channel in the U.S.), Lion is the first feature film from Australian director Garth Davis. His impressive supervision guides this remarkably well-composed debut. It helps that he’s working from a […]
High-Rise
Every December 31st, I put together a Top 10 list. As an obligation to tradition, I also highlight a few of the absolute worst as well. In assembling my worst, I realized that I never wrote a review for my least favorite production of 2016. At the time, it was such a horrible experience that […]
Sing
Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) is a plucky koala who owns a music theater. Lately, his productions have bombed and now he is in financial trouble. He loves the concert hall for it has a rich history. In an effort to save his failing business he decides to hold a singing contest, not unlike American Idol. […]
La La Land
I want to live in Los Angeles. Not the real LA mind you, but the glittering jewel of a city in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land. The city often gets a bad rap. There are the oft-mentioned reasons: smog, extreme traffic, insufficient public transportation, crime, gangs, the pseudo-spiritualism, the unchecked vanity, the obsession with celebrities. […]
The Edge of Seventeen
It’s nice to see that the ongoing plight of the adolescent hasn’t changed. The “major” dilemmas for a pretty, young, well-to-do student from suburban Portland may not add up to much in the grand scheme of things, but they represent the entire world to a 17-year-old girl. The drama opens with our hapless hero Nadine […]