Friday, December 4, 2015

Arch Campbell's Weekend Movie Guide (12-4-15)

Christopher Abbott stars in James White

From our friend, Arch Campbell...

Best Bets > Brooklyn - 4 Stars. Irish girl comes to America in the 1950's, then gets tugged back. Great story of finding your way, and making the right life choice.

Spotlight - 4 Stars. The Boston Globe's investigation of abuse in the church leads to global change. Wonderful celebration of newspaper reporting in its humanity.

Room - 4 Stars. Hard to watch, and impossible to forget. Bree Larson raises her son in captivity, then suddenly... freedom. A knot-in-the-stomach thriller.

The Martian - 3½ Stars. In the great tradition of rescue movies, likable Matt Damon gets left behind on Mars and must figure out his survival.

Arch with Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis (r)

Creed - 3 Stars. Winning update of the "Rocky" series.

Bridge of Spies - 3 Stars. Tom Hanks stars in solid, true life Cold War drama.

Spectre - 3 Stars. The latest James Bond hits all the winning formula marks, but runs long and sometimes feels predictable. Fans won’t mind.

Steve Jobs - 3 Stars. I wanted to love Aaron Sorkin’s biography of Steve Jobs. I liked this treatment; but it’s awfully talky, feels like a play, and Jobs comes off as even more of a jerk than expected.

Sicario - 3 Stars. Mysterious law enforcement officers join Benicio Del Toro in the Arizona border drug wars. Emily Blunt plays an FBI innocent, tricked into compliance. Put my stomach in a knot for the entire movie.

New Opening > James White - 2½ Stars. You'll take note of Christopher Abbott as a result of this performance as a 20-something having maturity thrust upon him. Cynthia Nixon co-stars.

Suffragette: 2½ Stars. Harsh history lesson of the fight for women to gain the vote in England more than 100 years ago.

The Intern - 2½ Stars. Robert De Niro comes out of retirement to learn and teach Anne Hathaway. Sweet. Sometimes too sweet.

Trumbo - 2½ Stars. Biography of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted in the 1950's.

The 33 - 2 Stars. True story of miners trapped in Chili, told comic book style.

Secret in Their Eyes - 2 Stars. Long, confusing thriller, even Julia Roberts can't save.

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.