By John H. Foote (**) Despite beautiful, lavish visual effects, the very presence of the sanctimonious #MeToo zealot Brie Larson made this a very difficult film to like. The hypocrisy of Larson taking on a super hero film, then making clear her disdain for the fanboys who will make her film a hit, was hard…
By John H. Foote (****) Watching this film filled me with revulsion, it disgusted and sickened me to the extent I thought I was going to be physically ill. It is an exceptional film, but one I will see just once. It explores the darkest side of one of the most gifted pop stars of…
By John H. Foote (**) Isabelle Huppert is to French cinema what Meryl Streep is to North American film, a god of acting. Oddly, she might be best known to some of us for her work in Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980), but to others she is known for her array of truly brilliant performances through…
By Nick Maylor I could not care less about the outcome of Sunday night’s game. I don’t watch football. However, Superbowl Sunday always offers the world some entertaining commercials, extravagant musical performances and (most importantly) new movie stuff! AVENGERS: ENDGAME The night started right away with a bang as Joe Russo and Anthony Russ tweeted…
By John H. Foote (**) M.Night Shymalan burst onto the film scene with The Sixth Sense (1999) which landed him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, five other nominations, and a DGA nomination. Touted, and touting himself as the “next Spielberg”, seven years would go by before Shymalan came crashing down to earth. His…
By John H. Foote (****) They are ghosts to us, living in the jittery black and white footage shot 100 years ago. Yet they did not exist in black and white, their world was colour. The green grass was turned into a roiling sea of mud and blood on the battlefields, new technologies tore their…
By John H. Foote This is the worst kind of Hollywood biography. To be merciful, I will be quick. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of the most extraordinary women on the last one hundred years and certainly deserved so much more than this. Earlier in the year, the superb documentary RBG (2018) beautifully documented the life of this…
By John H. Foote Nicole Kidman gives a towering performance of barely concealed fury in this film, a performance that elevates the film, a performance that is the finest of her career. With little to no make up, her hair a mess, her eyes red with lack of sleep, her movements simply forward, unyielding, she is a frightening…
By John H. Foote Great acting performances leave me in awe. They stroke my soul, they feed me. Great acting has often brought me to tears just because of the purity of the accomplishment, it can be utterly breathtaking to see. From Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Jane Fonda in Klute (1971),…
By John H. Foote Despite appearances in Batman v. Superman (2016) and Justice League (2017), Aquaman is an original movie, telling the story of how the super hero from beneath the sea came to be. A big, overblown, overlong epic film you can see where the two hundred million budget was spent, and we understand why they have…