Despite being the best movie of the year, Motherless Brooklyn sank without a trace. Think Rain Man crossed with Chinatown. Adapted, directed, and starring Edward Norton, this film is a joy to watch. Norton plays a private detective with Tourette's in New York City. It has a great supporting cast including Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, and Willem Dafoe.
The title says it all. Vita & Virginia tells the story of the affair between Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki) and Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton). Debicki is amazing in everything she does. See The Night Manager. Throw in Isabella Rossellini as Lady Sackville and Peter Ferdinando as the long-suffering Leonard Woolf, and you have a very lovely, romantic, tragic film.
Greta Gerwig and her muse, Saoirse Ronan, have done it again. Last year, it was Lady Bird, and now it is Little Women. Gerwig adapted the book and gave it a very modern feel. The screenplay and the amazing cast including, Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Timothee Chalamet, Meryl Streep, and Laura Dern, make it a joy.
This semi-autobiographical film is written and directed by Pedro Amodovar with Antonio Banderas playing an aging director strangely similar to Almodovar himself. This is probably Banderas' best role ever, and he would win the Oscar for Best Actor if the fix weren't in for Joaquin Phoenix. Penelope Cruz plays Banderas' mother in flashbacks. It is in Spanish with subtitles but don't let that stop you.
I really loved this film about an unsuccessful musician (Himesh Patel) who gets hit by a bus and wakes up to find that The Beatles don't exist, and that he suddenly has a new, great playlist. Directed by the wonderful Danny Boyle, and co-starring Lily James (Downton Abbey), this is a very sweet and romantic film. The scene with John Lennon will make you cry.
Ok, maybe you don't think a whole movie consisting of two old guys talking to each other is very exciting. But, I was fascinated by this story of Popes Benedict XVI and Francis I. Who knows if any of it is true, but the screenplay sizzles, and the two old pros, Anthony Hopkins (Benedict) and Jonathan Pryce (Francis), take it from there.
The latest (probably autobiographical) film by Noah Baumbach, is the purposely mis-titled film, Marriage Story, which gives a detailed, emotional play-by-play of the divorce of a director (Adam Driver) and his actress wife (Scarlet Johansson). The supporting cast is a bunch of old pros who are fun to watch including, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, and Wallace Shawn. And Marriage Story is not a complete downer. It has a very nice uplifting ending.
I have a love/hate thing for Tarantino. I hated Inglourious Basterds, loved Django Unchained, and hated The Hateful Eight. You get the idea. I also have issues with Leonard DiCaprio. But, I pretty much loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are great as an aging film star and his longtime stuntman. Plus the subplot of Charles Manson and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) adds a frisson that lasts until the surprise ending.
This film tells the true story of how Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) gets revenge on Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) for calling him fat. Ford hires car designer, Caroll Shelby (Matt Damon), and crazy driver, Ken Miles (Christian Bale), to beat Ferrai in the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1966. Ford v Ferrai is a romp which doesn't take itself too seriously. It's very fun to watch. Outlander's Caitriona Balfe is along for the ride as Bale's wife.
As you probably already know, this fast-paced, exciting movie was made to look like it was filmed in one long take. It tells the story of two soldiers in World War I who are sent on an impossible mission to try and call off a doomed attack. Dean-Charles Chapman and George Mackay are bland but great as the two soldiers, and we get nice cameos every 15 minutes or so by well-known British actors to perk things up. The cameos include, Colin Firth, Andrew Scott ( The Hot Priest), Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, and Richard Madden (Rob Stark). Sam Mendes wrote and directed 1917 which may pick up an Oscar or two.
