Category Archives: Movies

Review: CODA

Posted on January 20, 2022 by philipbrasor

After reading the synopsis for the American film CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) but prior to seeing it, I felt as if I’d seen this movie before, and, as a matter of fact, it is based on a 2015 French … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Review: Stillwater

Posted on January 18, 2022 by philipbrasor

Director Tom McCarthy gives the viewer every opportunity to offer his painfully thoughtful movie every benefit of the doubt, especially in the beginning when he introduces his protagonist, Bill Baker (Matt Damon), a laid-off oil worker from Oklahoma who wears … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged | Leave a comment

Review: I’m Your Man

Posted on January 17, 2022 by philipbrasor

Ostensibly a romantic comedy about android love, this subversively heartbreaking German feature, written (with Jan Schomburg, based on a published short story) and directed by Maria Schrader, makes too much sense for a tale that, while remaining stubbornly cerebral to … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Review: Monk/Monk in Europe

Posted on January 16, 2022 by philipbrasor

These two hour-long documentaries by Michael Blackwood, filmed in a verite style, follow the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk during several concert and recording stints in the U.S. and then Europe in 1967. There is no narration, and much of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged | Leave a comment

Review: The Day I Died: Unclosed Case

Posted on January 15, 2022 by philipbrasor

South Korean cinema has perfected the police procedural owing mainly to Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder (still his best, I think), which set the bar very high at a crucial time when Korean directors were coming into their own internationally. … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Leave a comment

Review: House of Gucci

Posted on January 14, 2022 by philipbrasor

Given that the elaborate set piece which sets the extravagant mood for this highly stylized retelling of the fall of the Gucci fashion brand is a wedding where everyone sports comically distinctive Italian accents, it’s tempting to approach Ridley Scott’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home

Posted on January 7, 2022 by philipbrasor

The mind-boggling box office success of the latest Spider-Man installment during another surge in the pandemic only goes to prove that there’s no such thing as too much Spider-Man, and while some will point to the MCU imprimatur as being … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Kagawa District 1

Posted on December 24, 2021 by philipbrasor

Director Arata Oshima’s followup to last year’s surprise hit documentary, Why You Can’t Be Prime Minister, is a clear case of striking while the iron is hot. Prime Minister focused on lawmaker Junya Ogawa, a walking cliche of political idealism … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Review: Deliver Us From Evil

Posted on December 23, 2021 by philipbrasor

Lee Jung-jae has recently achieved worldwide fame for his lead role in Squid Game, but he’s been a reliably popular leading man in South Korea for many years, and is certainly one of the more versatile actors in Korean cinema. … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Review: Belushi

Posted on December 18, 2021 by philipbrasor

Having not read Bob Woodward’s infamous biography of John Belushi nor seen the even more infamous narrative movie adaptation, I approached R.J. Cutler’s fairly conventional documentary about the legendary actor with few prejudices and left it with more questions than … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | Leave a comment