The Florida Project is not a movie for everyone. Case in point: I utterly adored this movie, my movie companion, not so much. My companion wanted a movie with a more traditional story arc with a defined beginning and end. He complained as the movie progressed, he did not see “the point.” But to find…
About five years ago, my dear friend and frequent movie companion put his total trust in me, and we went to see the animated (almost silent save for a few lines in Gaelic) French-Scottish film, The Illusionist (L’Illusionniste, 2010). I’ve never lived it down. Today, he indicated that we’d hit a new low. 😉 Okay, so not…
If you know me and know anything about this movie, you’ll likely–and correctly–guess that I enjoyed it. The movie is a wonderful, aptly timely, social commentary on bigotry, fear, and the risk of being quick to judge and quick to condemn. The story follows the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo while he is blacklisted in Hollywood. The…
As is within my realm of reflections, this movie, less than a year old, was fair game for review. I’m glad I took the time to watch it. Love and Mercy is certainly not a traditional biopic. It jumps between Brian Wilson as a younger Beach Boy to his life as an adult in the…
I saw this movie some time ago. It was just after the wide release of the film. When my movie companion was available for a film, I suggested it. He said, “Nothing like a major church cover up to make one cynical before the holidays.” Okay, so that’s his humor, but yes—Indeed. He had a…
Read this book. Everyone. Soon. Now. No, it’s not an easy subject matter. But it addresses one of the absolute guarantees of life: death. I originally bought this book, having heard the author interviewed on a podcast discussing end-of-life issues, for work. I often discuss end-of-life issues with clients as we talk about advanced…
Adultery—-it’s painful stuff. It’s one thing to be the adulterer. It’s another thing to be the other person. It’s something else—and I say much greater—to be the one cheated on, the one who accepts or turns a blind eye or even who is blindsided. But imagine the teen or preteen child of the married couple…
I’ve never read David Foster Wallace’s work (yet), but you needn’t have in order to dive deep into the new movie about his interview by Rolling Stone’s David Lipsky, who spent several days with the author while Wallace wrapped up his book tour on the heels of publishing Infinite Jest in 1996. After Wallace’s suicide…
I was tickled to see another performance by Jacksonville’s local Five and Dime Theater Company, and as expected, they did not disappoint. First, the play: Clybourne Park is a powerful commentary on the changing face of urban neighborhoods—-tracing the “white flight” to suburbs and the subsequent gentrification of those original locales. The play, set in…
My timing in seeing films sometimes causes wonder in me. Watching the painfully self-destructive, fatal behavior of an addict on the screen rips at my heart. Seeing the vacant stare that hides the apparent hurt and pain behind those eyes brings such sadness. These are the things that rang out to me in watching Amy, the…
I love that spark of excitement that happens when, with fall on the horizon, I see that first grand performance of the movie year. That happened with Ian McKellan’s performance in Mr. Holmes. The film is indeed about that Mr. Holmes, as in Sherlock. But I didn’t go because I’m a fan of that literature. And…
Still Alice is one of the great movies of the year that everyone should see. It’s heartbreaking. It’s earnest. It’s painful. It’s real. No, it’s not based on a true story, but it is based on deep research. The premise is early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease, and although at its base it really is just the story…
This is the first I’ve seen the animated Oscar-nominated shorts. Thus, I was ill-equipped to be able to better warn my girlfriends who came along with me. No, these are not happy, singing Disny-style animated pieces. What they are, though, are an eclectic blend of fantastic displays of depth, emotion, imagination, and realism. Some made…
Go see the Oscar-nominated live action short films! What a delightful two hours, watching five separate films, varying in length between about 14 and 45 minutes. Jacksonvillians, they’re playing at SunRay for the next week, and given that you can get yummy food and beer and wine there all while supporting local small business, what…
The Homesman is a dreary movie, but dreariness aside, it’s also a good movie. It shows the brutal and bitter side of frontier life, a life I cannot imagine how—or why—those brave souls in the past took on. But it shows too how that life destroyed not only lives but minds of some of those…