Appearances can be deceiving, both in people and in the arts. Longtime producer and first-time director Marc Turtletaub crafts together a soft, tender story of a middle-aged woman (Kelly Macdonald – Anna Karenina, No Country for Old Men) searching for an identity she didn’t even know she was searching for in the understated, well-executed Puzzle. It’s a movie that, despite its premise and, specifically, its non-descript trailer, gives life to a well-narrated tone that explores each of its five lead characters in a way you would never think that competitive puzzle-building could. I only saw this movie because I was trying to break my record for the number of films I saw in one year. As I approached triple digits, few remained that caught my eye as something I needed to see. However, the 83% critic/78% audience score for Puzzle was enough for me to try the movie, and I needed only to see the first 15 minutes or so to know that this was a movie I would also be reviewing.
Category Archives: Drama
Borg Vs. McEnroe (2018)
The 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Championship Match was among the greatest tennis matches ever. It featured the number one player in the world (Sweden’s Bjorn Borg) seeking his fifth street title in the most famous tournament in the sport against the upstart American John McEnroe, who had quickly climbed to be the number two player in the world. Young director Janus Metz captures the history of both men and their rivalry up to this point in their careers while centering on this all-important match.
Creed II (2018)
Cash Grab II…I mean, Creed II is, perhaps, the most predictable movie of the year. Before we get into the movie specifics, let’s examine it from the standpoint of whether we needed it. The answer to that is a big, fat no. But even if we don’t need a movie, it doesn’t mean it won’t be good. And even though we know how a movie will end before seeing its opening credits, it is still worth viewing. It was a well-made movie, but, in the end, I wished I had devoted my two hours to a more unique film, even if I ended up not enjoying whatever that movie was nearly as much. Creed II was exactly the movie I thought it would be…not any better…not any worse. I wasn’t surprised by a single thing that I saw. I was tentative about the original Creed in 2015, but with originality in its cast, that movie was enjoyable and worthwhile. Creed II was enjoyable but didn’t offer anything new.
High Life (2019)
2001: A Space Odyssey, Moon, Prometheus, The Martian, Interstellar, Life, First Man, Passengers, Solaris, Alien, Apollo 13, Gravity, it is not. Claire Denis (Chocolat, Friday Night) ambitiously ventured into outer space territory, a territory she had previously not explored, and found herself with a movie that was hard to appreciate, very difficult to enjoy, and left you with a million burning questions, most of which you would never care if they were ever answered or not. I give Denis credit for ambition, just as I gave Alex Garland credit for in Annihilation, a movie that if you enjoy, you might also enjoy High Life. But much like that movie, its plausibility was tossed out the window from the start, and its uneven semblance left you looking at your watch more than it did trying to find answers.
The Doors (1991)
Consistent with many of the most successful biopics about the greatest of American songwriters/bands (i.e., Walk the Line, Ray, Love & Mercy, La Bamba, What’s Love Got to Do With It, 8 Mile, Great Balls of Fire, Straight Outta Compton, Bohemian Rhapsody) in the last 30 years comes Oliver Stone’s (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) distant, unsteady, and unapologetic story of Jim Morrison and his band in the 1991 movie The Doors. Liked more by audiences than critics, the Val Kilmer (Top Gun, Heat) led movie takes us through the formation of the band in the early 1960s to Morrison’s mysterious 1971 death in a Paris bathtub at the age of 27. One of the founding members of the infamous 27 Club, Morrison was an energizing performer whose limit-pushing love of drugs and alcohol led to his early death.