The most original movie of the year is also one of its best. Darius Marder’s (Loot) subtle and subdued Sound of Metal features a breakout and Oscar-worthy performance from British actor and rapper Riz Ahmed (Mogul Mowgli, The Sisters Brothers). Ahmed stars as Ruben, a drummer for a two-person heavy metal rock band Blackgammon. Along with singer/guitarist/girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke – Ready Player One, Life Itself), he lives in an RV. He travels throughout middle America as the duo goes from one venue to the next. If that sounds like such a simple premise, I assure you that this movie is far more poignant than you could ever expect.
Category Archives: Olivia Cooke
Life Itself (2018)
Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of all 2018 movies was Dan Fogelman’s (Danny Collins) little-seen gutwrenching Life Itself. Not to be confused with the Roger Ebert documentary of the same name, this chapter-style movie is best viewed if you know as little about it as possible going in. I read this in the first paragraph of a review site I respect, and it was enough to get me to stop reading the review. I didn’t research anything more about it until I had finished watching the movie and was completely shocked to see that it had just a 13% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes (78% fresh with audiences based on 981 ratings at the time of this review). While the drama was thick and all of the tie-ins between the stories a little too coincidental and convenient to believe that all of the connections truly happened by chance, I was able to suspend that portion of the movie because A) I didn’t see everything coming ahead of time (naively perhaps) and B) because the raw emotions of this film felt so thick and real to me that I couldn’t help but be wrapped in the folds of each character. Continue reading Life Itself (2018)