Michael Caine can deliver as much to a role as anyone. He has as much screen presence as anyone. Time has seemed unable to change that. “Youth” as a film fits into a few categories that it will serve to describe. This is an “art” film–which broadly means that it is stylized enough such that not everything is explicit. You might have questions. Heaven forbid that this prompts conversation or discussion later (he said with a snicker directed toward today’s overstimulated virtual society). It is also, despite the plain English, a foreign film more than an American or UK film. It is set, mostly, in the Swiss Alps and the sensibilities are European (it was directed by Pablo Sorrentino, an Italian). This is not to

The movie “Room” is going to win its share of awards at the Oscars. If it were named Best Picture, I would not be surprised–nor would I disapprove. It has already won prizes at the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards (to name only two). It’s exactly the kind of independent movie I love: it’s relatively simple, thought-provoking, inspiring, and balanced: at once sweet and somber. There’s a long-haired five-year-old boy, Jack, who has never seen the outside of a fortified garden shed. His only experience of the outside world is the sky through a skylight, and his mother’s explanations of the images on a cheap TV. They are captives. In an early scene, Jack begins his day by greeting the fixtures. “Good morning sink,

Titles are a fascination for me. I have a good vocabulary, but I did not know what a revenant was. I took enough French to know it means “coming back,” or “one who comes back.” When you learn that French frontiersman are part of the plot, the French usage of that time for “ghost” or “spirit returned from the dead” makes sense. Alejandro Inarritu’s latest film, The Revenant, was almost an epic. It was almost a saga. I saw the most realistic bear mauling scene imaginable. Frontier survival and lore may never have been made so candid and graphic (it’s winter, your horse just died and you lost your coat: what do you do?). Per usual with this director, the action is interrupted with visits

I am beginning to see Michael Lewis, author of the book that formed the basis for the film, as one of the most important authors of the 21st century. I have only read a few of his books, but I already know him the way I know other very good writers: when I read his books, I despair at the excesses and folly he makes accessible and visible (not everything he covers is simple or overt), and I take hope and inspiration while his protagonists (real people) act as proof that conscience and virtue are still at large in the world. The full title of his book is The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. It has as a backdrop the events leading up to

Quentin Tarantino’s latest, The Hateful Eight, baffles me. I don’t understand how the same person who created compelling dialogue, inventive plots, and delightful characters in several other of his works, could have made this very expensive B movie. But then, as I consider this statement I realize that all his movies are simply B movies that graduate as part of some clever reconstruction. To his credit, he made some memorable films with his “mosaic” style. He assembled, arranged, and remanufactured the most potent, quirkiest, and fun (for him certainly) outtakes from B movies–often diverse genres of them at that–such that the resulting composition held together. But since Inglourious Basterds, which featured several exceptional acting segments, he has been mixing his plots with revisionist racial and

Brooklyn is exactly the kind of UK film that makes me swoon. The combination of drama, scenery, acting, and music always seems tempered against sensation–unlike so many US films. In UK films, as with Brooklyn, there’s usually the scope of history and some perspective to dwell upon, and the pace and tone are restrained and somber enough to remind you that past communication was done mostly through letters, and dockside goodbyes implied years (at least) of separation. In the early 1950s, a young Irish woman leaves for New York and lands in an Irish enclave in Brooklyn. The clothes, cars and conventions of the day are a thrill to see, but the real thrill is to watch a reserved girl become a more worldly and

David O. Russell doesn’t make bad movies. And lately he gets Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence (and Robert De Niro) to act in them. His most recent movie, Joy, is set in the early ‘90s and is based on real events. Many popular films this year were set in the past, some in the 1950s and ‘60s. My sense of this phenomenon is that through these films, we peer longingly behind us for evidence of a more authentic, more human reality. I mention movies set in the past because Joy takes three very contemporary themes and examines them in the form of a pioneering example twenty years ago: a single mother who thought and acted like a star entrepreneur. The three themes embedded in that

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the latest in a series of seven Star Wars films. If you mention your interest in it, enough of the people you talk to who are not afraid to hurt your feelings will dismiss it as popular culture and unsophisticated pablum. I do not come from that group and while I can be snobby enough about other tastes, I waited in line for this one. Star Wars is not simply popular culture and part of a passing fad; it is a narrative ark that safeguards important modern myths and prepares several generations for a new era of humanity. The saga began nearly four decades ago: in social terms, a long time ago and a place that seems far, far

A very good film like Spotlight surpasses entertainment: like all good Art, it inspires, instructs, and even admonishes. It is a powerful predictive tool, too, if you view it in the context of the present condition of the US media. It helps when a film is closely based on real events, as Spotlight is. While I would have seen this film for the cast alone, the story and subject matter was very compelling. I do not refer to the specific story about the priests of the Catholic Church and the history of sex abuse—I have already processed that reality. But I AM interested in the story about a newspaper in Boston that broke a story that sent shock waves around the world: I am interested

My inaugural movie review covers a lesser-known film. This is good news for you if you find it as worthy as I did, because if you catch it soon enough, you will get good seats. Sometimes two people with similar sensibilities can watch the same film and come away with different reactions. I don’t refer to tastes in this instance. I refer to motivation. If you need sex, action, and special effects, this might not be your film. If you like good acting, great costumes, and an inspiring true story, read on… I went to see this film, Trumbo, because I was interested in the history. Because I am a movie aficionado, of course I wanted to learn more about some of the key “actors”