I watched 6 movies last week:
- Black Fury is a well directed and rousing story of union solidarity, but Paul Muni’s terrific performance really takes center stage.
- Give everyone involved in The Werewolf of Washington this much credit, they’re all in on the joke. I just don’t think it’s an especially funny joke.
- Nia DaCosta’s lush and sensual Hedda feels very much like a reimagining of the original Ibsen play that it almost doesn’t matter how little I remember of that one production I saw back in college.
- They should have sent a poet. I knew Andrea Gibson’s poetry only in passing, having seen them perform their 2023 poem “MAGA Hat in the Chemo Room.” But their final years, captured so soulfully and beautifully in Come See Me in the Good Light make me understand the beauty of language and life that I was missing.
- The Sorcerers feels a little cheaply made, a goofy but interesting idea fleshed out only insofar as the budget and performances will allow.
- I can see why The Trail might seem too slow and not scary to a lot of people, but I thought it worked really well, especially with what was obviously almost no budget. The movie isn’t necessarily subtle in being a metaphor for trauma and its lingering fear, but I think that simplicity actually works very much in its favor.
