- Short Term 12 runs the risk of melodrama and cliche, but the performances and honest empathy with which the characters are viewed lift it up to something genuinely moving.
- It is the times that stand out most in The Times of Harvey Milk. It’s the portrait of a charismatic and compassionate man cut down far too soon, but even more so, it’s a fascinating window into San Francisco and the fight for gay rights at the time.
- There are a lot of interesting ideas swirling around Night’s End, a good central performance from Geno Walker, and some decent scares for such an obviously micro-budget. But, sadly, it largely falls apart by…well, night’s end.
- The 13th Warrior is best when it leans into the Beowulf retelling. It’s fine but unremarkable as an action movie, more than a little dull as an historical drama, and most engaging as a horror movie.
- Liberty Heights is a little too meandering, maybe not focusing on any one of its characters enough, but Barry Levinson does a good job capturing what it must have felt like to grow up Jewish in Baltimore in the 1950s.
- Lucio Fulci called Demonia, one of the last movies he ever directed, “a wonderful movie, ruined from very bad photography.” I would reverse that, if I’m being honest. The scenic locations and architecture of the movie’s fake archaeological dig almost can’t help produce the occasionally interesting shot. If only the script and the acting could say the same. The movie is confused and dull, somehow both over and under-complicated, and it really doesn’t hold together as much of anything in the end. A half dozen movies into his filmography and I think I can safely say Fulci’s horror movies aren’t for me.
I also rewatched Broadcast News, which I haven’t seen since almost back when its topical references were current. The news media has changed dramatically since the movie was made, but I think the ethical questions it asks are still valid. Moreover, though, the characters are just so well drawn and the comedy so good that a little bit of stale datedness doesn’t detract too much.
