When it’s time to round up thoughts on 12 months of movies, where do you start? Anyone can make a list of favorites – after 25 of these, I’m proof. But there’s a desire to seek a larger context, to find common themes. Similarities across an art form can reveal a shared cultural moment, a […]
Author: Norm Schrager
Elvis
In the 40-plus years since Elvis Presley’s death, his legend has become increasingly bigger than life. A star beyond stars. The very definition of celebrity. An ideal subject for the frenetic flash of director Baz Luhrmann, whose small portfolio of feature films kicks life into another gear, something bigger than “bigger than life.” Luhrmann’s Elvis […]
The Top 10 Movies of 2021
2021 was The Year that New Movies Were Everywhere. Back in theaters. Premiering on Netflix. Streaming on HBO Max, a notable evolution that synced at-home WB releases with theatrical showings for 30 days. The moviegoing experience used to involve picking a movie and a moviehouse in which to see it (and snack selections, of course). […]
The Tender Bar
The Tender Bar is a structural, tonal mess – but a damn likable one. George Clooney, directing his seventh film, leaves a sloppy trail of memories and moments in the life of writer J.R. Moehringer, who we see as a kid growing up fast on Long Island, and then as a hopeful journalist figuring out […]
The Hand of God
While lying awake one night in the bedroom they share, Fabietto faces a question from older brother, Marchino: Would he rather have sex with their gorgeous, flirtatious Aunt Patrizia or have soccer legend Diego Maradona play for their hometown team. Ah, a conundrum made for a teenager. What else would a young man in 1980s […]
Drive My Car
In some of the most effective storytelling, there is precision. Not just in the details, dialogue, and settings, but also in how a tale is told. In Drive My Car, celebrated filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi emphasizes the “how”, creating an elegant, reflective movie that moves beyond plot and conversation to examine – and enjoy – the […]
The Wanting Mare
It’s rare that scrappy filmmakers with even scrappier budgets produce a movie as ambitious as The Wanting Mare. It’s an artsy poem of wide, gorgeous landscapes, a story of multiple generations that’s both confident and perplexing. If Terrence Malick dove into sci-fi, the result would probably look and feel like this. Audience reaction would be […]
The Top 10 Movies of 2020
In any recap of 2020, what can one say that hasn’t already been said? The ongoing global dissection of the year’s internal stresses, external vitriol, and painful events put escapism at a premium — the kind of mental getaway that movies often provide. But with theaters closed, or almost universally avoided, where does that attempt […]
The Work
I can’t recall seeing a film that rumbles with as much rage as The Work, an exceptional documentary that takes place over four days within the confines of a large room at Folsom Prison in California. The film’s participants have an anger that sits somewhere beneath the surface, waiting to erupt at the slightest provocation. […]
Dean
Stand-up comedy, by its very nature, is a self-involved activity, requiring the type of personality that doesn’t always translate well to narrative film. I’m thinking specifically of comedian Mike Birbiglia’s two films as a writer-director – the first about a comedian who sleepwalks (psst, Mike has), and the second about comic performers in a comedy […]
Wakefield
Bryan Cranston is no stranger to inhabiting formidable lead characters – there’s LBJ and, of course, the inimitable Walter White – so he’s in familiar territory in the interesting but tonally misguided character drama, Wakefield. As a suburban family man who takes a sharp midlife-crisis turn, Cranston is firm, pushy, and a little threatening, a […]
Lion
The true-to-life sob story has been done to death. You know how it goes: Likable person faces peril, conflict, maybe illness. Person somehow overcomes said troubles to stand as a symbol of courage or perseverance. The genre has taken a serious cultural hit as of late with Patriots Day, which has been considered by some […]
Girl Asleep
When a film transitions from a real environment to a fantastical one, it usually works in its favor. But in the case of Girl Asleep, the change does just the opposite. Once we enter the dream world of just-turned-15-year-old Greta, the movie loses its way – but briefly. It’s Greta’s real life that carries the […]
Microbe and Gasoline
Michel Gondry, the French filmmaker of big dreams, somber heartache and The Green Hornet, returns to his hometown of Versailles to tell a simple tale of two school-age boys who run away one summer. Microbe and Gasoline – the title is the boys’ nicknames – doesn’t have the surreal artistry of Gondry’s Mood Indigo or […]
The Invitation
Sure, dinner parties can get awkward, but The Invitation takes it to all new levels of social discomfort. Small talk and big boozing are nothing compared to the paranoia suffered in this creepy genre-blender that mixes realistic emotional drama, haunted house basics, and California New Age cultishness. With tight direction from Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) […]
April and the Extraordinary World
The ingenious, animated French film April and the Extraordinary World is what every adventure movie should be, an exciting journey with intelligent, creative surprises at nearly every turn. Adapted from work by graphic novelist Jacques Tardi, April combines alt-universe sci-fi, world history, and a fascinating collection of low-fi technology. It’s a steampunk fantasy minus the […]
Anomalisa
Consider the half-dozen or so screenplays Charlie Kaufman has written and there’s no disputing his boundless creativity, regardless of your taste for his eccentric, sometimes surreal, style. His stories may be about brain-erasing and body-swapping, but Kaufman has always put the desire for human connection – scratch that, the thirst for it – at the […]
Experimenter
In the early 1960s, researcher Stanley Milgram conducted a series of social experiments that are still discussed decades after his career and life. A test subject would ask a series of questions to a person sitting behind a wall separating them. If an incorrect answer was given, the subject was told to administer an electric […]
Wildlike
Too many films get assigned the term “coming of age,” an overused catch-all for any story in which a young man or woman experiences something new. Wildlike has been tagged with that description, and it’s a lazy choice; for the girl at the center of the movie, this isn’t her coming of age — it’s […]