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| Timothée Chalamet & Armie Hammer (r) star in Call Me by Your Name |
From our friend, Arch Campbell...
Lady Bird - 4 Stars. Greta Gerwig directs a spot-on mother/daughter battle, during a young woman's high school senior year. Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf deliver award-worthy performances.
Darkest Hour - 4 Stars. Set in May 1940, as Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister and ignores the advice to negotiate with Hitler.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - 4 stars. Caustic, often shock comedy, starring Frances McDormand as a woman at war with the town police over the unsolved murder of her daughter.
Mudbound - 3½ Stars. Epic drama of poor, white farmers and poor, black sharecroppers in the post-WWII South.
Best New Bet > Call Me by Your Name - 3½ Stars. Beautifully filmed, languid Italian summer romance.
Blade Runner 2049 - 3 Stars. Sequel to the classic runs long, but packs in the special effects around a thick & juicy plot.
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| Arch Campbell with Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis (r) |
Wonder - 3 Stars. Family-friendly story of a 5th grader, born with facial deformities, trading home schooling for private school. Jacob Tremblay makes this story winning, with Julia Robert and Owen Wilson as his parents. Told from different points of view, it avoids sentimentality, remaining both funny and real.
Coco - 3 Stars. Pixar takes a deep dive into Mexican culture, in this eye-popping story of a little boy searching for his roots.
The Shape of Water - 3 Stars. Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaning woman, who comes to the aid of a sea creature captured during the Cold War.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 2½ Stars. Echoes the best elements of the earlier Star Wars films. Runs long and loud. Fans will love.
Murder on the Orient Express - 2½ Stars. Hammy but loving remake of the 1974 Agatha Christie classic.
Roman J. Israel Esq. - 2½ Stars. Denzel Washington as a socially conscious lawyer savant, who joins a big firm and loses his principals. Great story comes to a weak ending.
Last Flag Flying - 2½ Stars. Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell as Vietnam vets, who help Carell bury his son killed on duty in Iraq.
Justice League - 2 Stars. Charismatic Gal Gadot returns as Wonder Woman, and joins Batman and several others in another of the usual formula plots to save the world.
Thor: Ragnarok - 2 Stars. The latest chapter in Marvel's Thor franchise mixes comedy and action in an overlong, sometimes confusing package.
Loving Vincent - 2 Stars. Beautifully animates Van Gogh's masterpieces, but sets them to a back engineered hokey story.
A Bad Moms Christmas - 2 Stars. Mila Kunis and friends vow to prevent holiday hassle. Follows the formula set by 'The Hangover" and "Bridesmaids."
Wonder Wheel - 1 Star. Woody Allen on yet another nostalgia trip. A love triangle plus gangsters in 1950 Coney Island. Tired, long, and lifeless.
Victoria & Abdul - 2 Stars. Judi Dench (as Queen Victoria) grows fond of an Indian commoner, shocking her royal household. Lightweight stuff.
The Disaster Artist - 1 Star. Irritating story behind the making of the poorly made, privately financed film "The Room," now celebrated at midnight showings. With James Franco at his most icky.
Visit Arch's website for his (unrivaled) take on movies. He remains the only other (we're not self-hating) critic, whose opinion we admire and respect.
