2023 is proving to be the year of the biopic. While each year produces at least a couple of well-produced and well-marketed movies about the dramatization of a particular person’s life (or people), 2023 has more than usual. It is a trend I see continuing into future years. With films about Michael Jordan (
Air), George Foreman (
Big George Foreman), J. Robert Oppenheimer (
Oppenheimer), Emily Brontë (
Emily), Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (
Chevalier), Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon), Henk Rogers (
Tetris), Richard Montañez (
Flamin Hot), Leonard Bernstein (
Maestro), Ronald Reagan (
Reagan), there is no shortage as to what’s on the table for someone in Hollywood to take a stab at. The much-anticipated
Tetris felt like it would be the most significant “technology” biopic of the bench. However, I felt the film to be underwhelming and wildly ambitious (the KGB?) for a movie marketed to be about a universally cherished video game, but it often felt like it was anything except.
Continue reading BlackBerry (2023) →
The year 1995 got it right while getting it wrong simultaneously regarding the Oscars. I’m referring, in particular, to two movies. Dead Man Walking and Leaving Las Vegas. Each movie had knock-it-out-of-the-park performances from its lead characters, but neither film could capitalize on these performances to earn a Best Picture nomination. However, outside of Braveheart and Apollo 13, this wasn’t a particularly strong year with Babe, Sense and Sensibility, and The Postman as the other five nominees. Braveheart (the winner) continues to remain one of the most beloved Best Picture winners of all time, while many view Apollo 13 as a technical masterpiece. As a brief aside, Heat, Se7en, and The Usual Suspects deserved the other three nominees
A tour de force with its initial viewing, Christopher Nolan’s (
Judd Apatow’s humor is my kind of humor. Actually, I should preface that some. The movies that Apatow directs (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, 
Name a movie that you like much more than you should. I could rattle off dozens, and right at the top of that list might be the incredibly flawed yet thoroughly engrossing The Butterfly Effect, the supernatural thriller co-directed by J Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress. This movie could be better with each subsequent viewing, but it still gets the job done. I watch it every four or five years. It captivates me each time, though I pick it apart more. It’s not a criticism but rather an observation. This is a movie that I admire. I enjoy its dark themes.