Margot Robbie stars in I, Tonya |
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.
I, Tonya - 4 Stars. Margot Robbie dazzles as hard scrabble Olympic skater and tabloid queen Tonya Harding.
The Post - 3½ Stars. The Washington Post defies the government, and publishes the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Stirring newspaper drama, as well as inspiring rise of Katherine Graham as publisher/leader.
Arch Campbell with Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis (r) |
Mudbound - 3½ Stars. Epic drama of poor, white farmers and poor, black sharecroppers in the post-WWII South.
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.
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.
All the Money in the World - 2½ Stars. Christopher Plummer as J. Paul Getty negotiates with Italian kidnappers for the life of his grandson. Everything has its price. Runs long, but has some brilliant moments.
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.
Molly's Game - 2½ Stars. Jessica Chastain spins a pretty good story about an Olympic hopeful, turned gambling queen. Aaron Sorkin's script starts interesting, but turns exhausting.
Downsizing - 2 Stars. Intriguing Matt Damon fable of a future, in which humans can shrink to less than one percent of normal size, the better to save the planet. Or do they?
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.
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.