One of my life’s little joys is seeing a listing of a previously unheard-of movie playing at one of my local theaters when I’m scanning over showtimes on a Friday as I plan for my weekend. The promotional poster is often enough for me to click and learn more. I’m even more intrigued when there are high critic and audience scores. The promotional poster and the scores encourage me, if nothing else, to watch the trailer. That was what I did with John Patton Ford’s debut feature. It took just 30 seconds before I stopped the trailer. I was convinced. Emily the Criminal was a movie that I needed to see.
Category Archives: Drama
A Journal for Jordan (2021)
A Rotten Tomatoes 39% critics score and a 95% audience score. That seems about right for the optimistic yet somber, audience-pleasing A Journal for Jordan, Denzel Washington’s (Antwone Fisher, Fences) fourth directed movie and first collaboration with fan-favorite Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Black Panther). This movie felt flat and disjointed, yet I could easily understand the enjoyment some might feel if they were interested in watching an evolving love story. Unfortunately, this film would have been better suited as a made-for-television movie than a movie with aspirations of anything more.
Infinite Storm (2022)
I love a good survival film. Before starting a recent movie, the trailer for Małgorzata Szumowska’s (Never Gonna Snow Again) Infinite Storm instantly caught my attention. After watching the first half of the adrenaline-inducing preview, I closed my eyes and plugged my ears for the rest. I had seen enough to know that this was a movie that I wanted to see, and I didn’t want anything more to spoil that future experience. Infinite Storm surprised me. While it didn’t have nearly the extended intensity that the preview suggested, it also didn’t follow a predictable formula that would have left this movie lost in the shuffle compared to other survival movies. While a decent film with heartfelt ambition, Infinite Storm failed to wow and was doomed by a lousy script.
Cyrano (2021)
La La Land 2021? With 2021? With half a dozen ways different ways to start this review swirling through my head, I decided to best refer to La La Land, my favorite movie musical of all time. Because there is a new runner-up. While Joe Wright’s (Anna Karenina, Atonement) Cyrano doesn’t entirely leave that pit in your heart when it concludes, it comes pretty darn close. Both breathtakingly beautiful and painstakingly heartwrenching, Peter Dinklage (Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, I Care A Lot) is astounding as Cyrano de Bergerac, a role he was destined to play.
Don’t Look Up (2021)
Best Picture nominee? Don’t Look Up? Really? This movie had a wide December release. It earned less than one million dollars at the box office and was out of the theaters in under two weeks. Its 56% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes further suggests that this is different from a film one would deem to be selected by the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as one of its ten best films of 2021. Yet (sigh), here we are. The biggest tragedy might be that this isn’t a bad film but is unfairly getting bashed for its affiliation with the other nine movies up for Best Picture in arguably the worst collection of films for any year.