Movie Guide

Becoming Katherine Graham - 4 Stars - Prime - February 27, 2025 - Fascinating true story of Kay Graham's journey from dutiful wife to Journalism giant. 

Nickel Boys - 4 Stars - THEATERS - January, 2025 - STREAMING 2/18/25 - A young man in the wrong place lands in reform school. The film tells his story thru his eyes.  One of the year's most creative films.  

The Brutalist - 4 Stars - THEATERS - January 10, 2025 - Adrien Brody commands the story of WWII immigrant coming to America to design great buildings.  An old school story that takes its including a 15 minute intermission.   

A Complete Unknown - 4 Stars - THEATERS - December  25, 2024 - Stirring musical biography of Bob Dylan - his early friendships in the folk world and his transition to his own style.   

Conclave - 4 Stars - THEATERS - October 25, 2024 - Surprisingly great drama as Catholic Cardinals select a new Pope.  Ralph Fiennes at his best.  

Wicked Part 1 - 4 Stars - THEATERS - November 22, 2024 - Big, loud, charming, old school Hollywood version of Broadway's prequel to The Wizard of Oz.  First of two parts. 

Emilia Perez - 4 Stars - NETFLIX - November 1, 2024 - Over the top Operatic Crime Thriller/Comedy/Romance.  Musical in Spanish about Cartel leader who changes genders.  Wildly creative. 

  

His Three Daughters - 4 Stars - NETFLIX - September 6, 2024 

Great actresses Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne find truth in drama of a father's last days.  

Ghostlight - 4 Stars - STREAMING - PRIME - July 30, 2024 - A grieving construction worker wanders into a community theater group and winds up playing the lead in Romeo and Juliet - a role that heals him and his family.  

Juror # 2 - 3 1/2 Stars - MAX - October 27, 2024 - Clint Eastwood thriller.  Nicholas Hoult is picked on the jury for a c rime he might have committed.  With Toni Collette as prosecutor.  Eastwood knows how to tell a story and hold our attention. 

Inside Out 2 - 3 1/2 Stars - THEATERS - June 14, 2024 - Fine sequel to Pixar story of a young girl's emotions.  In this episode, puberty arrives.   

Thelma - 3 1/2 Stars - June 20, 2024 - THEATERS - June Squibb as senior citizen out to get even with the cyber thief who scams her. 

I'm Still Here - 3 Stars - STREAMING 3/08/25 - Memoir of a wife determined to discover the fate of her husband, taken away by Brazilian authorities.  Winner Best Foreign Film Academy Award. 

Anora - 3 Stars - THEATERS - November 1, 2024 - Mikey Madison as sex worker who connects with the son of a Russian mobster.  On a bender in Las Vegas, the couple marry.  The family's not happy.  Part Porn, Comedy, and Drama.  This ain't no Pretty Woman.   

The Apprentice - 3 Stars - October 11, 2024 - THEATERS - Surprisingly well-done Donald Trump hatchet job.  Good acting and a plot right out of Citizen Kane.  Not sure the world needs this.  

The Instigators - 3 Stars - APPLE - August 2, 2024.  Matt Damon and Casey Affleck turn a robbery gone bad into a grand adventure.  Better than it ought to be.    

Saturday Night - 2 Stars - THEATERS - October 4, 2024.  Tries to recreate the first night of Saturday Night Live and never comes close.  Maybe nostalgia isn't as good as it used to be. 

Between the Temples - 2 Stars - THEATERS - August 23, 2024 - Mildly entertaining crisis of faith with Jason Schwartzman as a Cantor who can't sing.  

Maria - 2 Stars - NETFLIX - December 11, 2024 --Angelina Jolie vamps for a couple of hours pretending she's Maria Callas.  

 

Blitz - 2 Stars - APPLE TV - November 22, 2024 - 9 ear old evacuated during wartime London rebels and finds his way home. Somehow this feel flat. 

A Real Pain - 1 Star - THEATERS - November 1, 2024 - Cousins Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin visit Poland to honor their late grandmother's roots.  This mismatched buddy movie turns annoying fast. 

The Substance - 1 Star - PRIME - September 20, 2024.  Demi Moore discovers a substance that let her younger self emerge.  But the younger self won't play by the rules.  The body horror begins.  

The Last Showgirl - 1 Star - THEATERS - January 10, 2025.  Pam Anderson as middle aged showgirl facing the end of her career.  

I'm Still Here - 3 Stars - THEATERS - February 7, 2025, STREAMING - March 8, 2025

This year's Academy Award winner for best Foreign Film recrates the  true story of a family's search for truth.  In 1970's Brazil, former congressman Rubens Paiva --- an outspoken critic of the Brazilian military dictatorship --- disappears.  Government agents tell his family he's going with them for questioning.  The family never sees him again.  Paiva's wife, played by Fernanda Torres, never falters in her lifetime search for the truth, while raising the family's five children.  The script is based on the memoir of Paiva's son Marcelo, a Brazilian playwright and screenwriter.  Fernanda Torres received well deserved attention for her portrait of a determined but patient wife and mother.  

Becoming Katherine Graham - 4 Stars - February 27, 2025 - PRIME VIDEO

Katherine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post on the suicide of her husband Phil Graham.  Becoming Katherine Graham features interviews from family, colleagues, and Mrs. Graham herself to trace the rise of a grieving widow to one of the most powerful figures of the 20th century.  Graham's challenges included chauvinism, the rise of feminism, a potential crippling printer's strike, and the Watergate scandal. Becoming Katherine Graham balances Mrs. Graham's fascinating story---accidental publisher, feminist icon, tough businesswoman.  Today's generation may have little knowledge of the power of The Washington Post in the last third of the 20th Century.  The formidable Mrs. Graham wielded power with an even hand rarely seen today.  

Nickel Boys --- 4 stars - January 24, 2025 - Streaming February 11, 2025

In Nickel Boys a young man in rural Florida accepts a ride on his way to school.  The choice turns tragic, when police stop the driver, determine the car is stolen, and send the innocent hitch hiker to the Nickle Reformatory.  This unjust plot in the racist south is all too familiar.  Director RaMell Ross changes everything by turning the camera outward.  We see this story in first person, through the eyes of the main character.  That change and the creative use of cinema make Nickel Boys one of the year's best films.  

The Last Showgirl - 1 Star - THEATERS - January 10, 2025

The Last Showgirl reminds us youth and beauty fade.  Pam Anderson plays a middle aged Vegas showgirl at the end of her career.  She's faded as has the revue where she's worked for thirty years.  Pam's character struggles to reconcile with her daughter, as well as the younger women in the revue.  Jamie Lee Curtis adds interest as a burnt out cocktail waitress and Pam's closest friend.  Anderson---once a bouncing symbol on TV's Baywatch---hopes to revive her career with this script which parallels her life.  There's nothing new in this plot, a storyline as old as the theater and the movies.  

A Complete Unknown - 4 Stars - THEATERS - December 25, 2025

 A Complete Unknown doesn't solve the puzzle of how Bob Dylan  became Bob Dylan.  His story comes in a familiar "and then I wrote and then I sang" box that thoroughly entertains.  Timothee Chalamet makes a great young Dylan.  He arrives in New York in the early 1960s, ready to join the folk movement.  Dropping in to visit Woody Guthrie, he meets Pete Seeger and performs a song in Gutherie's hospital room.  Next thing you know, he's got a record contract, singing gigs, and a ticket to stardom.  A Complete Unknown made me appreciate the father/son bond between Pete Seeger and Dylan.  As Seeger, Edward Norton gives the story heart and almost breaks your heart as Dylan's music outgrows Seeger's.  A Complete Unknown held my attention from start to finish.