Hyde Park on Hudson: sometimes choosing an unusual point of view in telling a story has appealing results. The angle, however, must be interesting itself, which is not the case here. This film struggles to find the proper tone, going from light fantasy to straight to caricature within a beat; sadly, it works best exactly at the tone used the least. Visually the inconsistency persists, and the choices certainly do not match the material. The most memorable thing about it […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic

Hitchcock: centered around 2 strong performances; Helen Mirren is powerful as usual and in fact upstages Mr Hopkins’ showy turn. They serve an entertaining story, filled with great quips. However, there are lows, and they are proportional too how far the film moves away from the making of Psycho.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic

Lincoln: the blocking here has a immobility that is usually associated with stage theater; it fits, however, with the character speech patterns, more relevantly to the characters themselves and to the story being told. It is, after all, the story of a debate, and it is beautifully shot, with all the technical bells and whistles one could expect from Steven Spielberg. The cast is superb, and that may be understating Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting. Still, it’s a film that I can […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic

‎The Sessions: while John Hawkes builds up a great piece of acting, not only because of the physical challenges involved but also for being able to make a tri-dimensional character, the rest of the characters and the narrative feel very stiff. The blame here belongs to the writing and not to the cast, it should be noted.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic

Carlos: very interesting, informative and above all entertaining, even if it slows down a bit towards the end (which is part of the nature of the story). It dealt admirably with the conundrum of telling the story of an obvious villain (even if one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist) and making him engaging and rich. Visually great (nitpick: the cars are always squeaky-clean and brand new).

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic

The Iron Lady: while the structure allowed Meryl Streep to once again give a wonderful performance, it also makes for a very uneven film. The narrative jumps feel artificial, and the whole informs surprisingly little about the subject. It almost feels like that it’s about no one in particular instead of one of the great leaders of our lifetime.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: biopic / historic