I remember walking out of the theater with a group of my first-year college friends after watching Edward Zwick’s (The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond) Legends of the Fall when my one friend turned to me and said, “I feel like I just want go in a hole and die now.” Truer words couldn’t have been spoken for, perhaps, the most extensive epic I had seen in a theater until that point in my life. I knew little about the film besides that it starred Brad Pitt (Twelve Monkeys, Se7en), and it could be a darker, more adult-oriented version of the beloved A River Runs Through It. The unknown was just a fraction of what made Legends of the Fall become one of my favorite movies of all time and one that has never fallen out of my Top 50. That is until my 2023 rewatch, some 15 years after I last watched the film.
Category Archives: Anthony Hopkins
The Son (2022)
Entering awards season two years removed from the success of his directorial debut The Father, a film that was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning two, Florian Zeller’s follow-up, The Son, had some lofty, albeit slightly unrealistic expectations, if for no other reason that some deemed it a continuation of the story. In contrast, others viewed its Christmas Day limited release to mean that the production company believed the movie would hopefully receive the same critical acclaim (98% critics, 94% audience) as The Father and wanted to keep the film fresh in voters’ minds as possible. Sadly, the film failed to resonate with either group (a paltry 26% critics and a lukewarm 67% audience). As a result, the film will fail to reach $1,000,000 at the box office despite a star-studded cast that flanked (and outmatched) the relatively unknown Zen McGrath (Dig), who played the title character.
Armageddon Time (2022)
Armageddon Time, James Gray’s (Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z) 1980 take on the pursuit of the American Dream, is a film with good intentions, but one that felt plagued by a plot that we’ve seen hundreds of times in cinema before. Even more detrimental to its predictable story was its attempt to impart wisdom to its audience, almost all of which we are already keenly aware of, especially in its release year of 2022. Unfortunately, The United States of America has been notorious for its class privileges, inequalities, and injustices. While we all have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream, specific paths often have far more obstacles to overcome than others. Gray successfully showcases this, but it’s hardly a discovery, and its overarching story has become quite a cliche.
The Father (2020)
Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day, Amistad) gives the second-best performance of his career (The Silence of the Lambs) in a film that fails to overwhelm, like most of the other best picture nominees. Disguised by the outstanding performances of many of the other movies nominated for Oscar’s most prominent award of the night, The Father (Florian Zeller’s directorial debut) is a very well-made film that we should remember for its story, its performances, its execution, and its all too real haunting reality. I’ll concede to that if these things meet the checklist of a Best Picture-nominated movie. But there was something while watching this highly engaging film that felt like it didn’t deserve to be a movie that was one of the eight best in any year. With that said, 2020 as a whole did not generate many great films. In that regard, The Father merits its acclaim. The counter-argument is that the Academy doesn’t have to nominate up to ten films. Before 2009, only five films were able to receive a nomination. Since then, the fewest number of Best Picture nominated films for a given year has been seven (2018). 2020 would have been a year that warranted the minimum number of selections. However, the top movies, as a whole, were so poor that it would be just as challenging to distinguish five that are that much better than eight.
Thor (2011)
I don’t know enough about the Thor story coming in, so there were parts of this movie when I wasn’t as confused as I was surprised. I saw Thor after seeing Captain America (even though Thor was released a few months ago). I liked the World War II storyline of Captain America. I also liked the mythology storyline of Thor. However, I was not a fan of the back and forth between and present day. I know that many probably liked this aspect of the movie, but I was so engrossed with the movie’s first 15 minutes that I didn’t want to leave this story to enter “the realm” of the present day.