Bombshell (2019)

 

A group of women take on Fox News head Roger Alies and the toxic atmosphere he presided over at the network. 

A top cast drama based on the actual events and depicting an important topic gives its stars lots of room to display their talent, but the events are unnecessarily toned down, probably to avoid legal liability, so that its message doesn't have the full impact it deserves.

 

 

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman

Genius (2016)

A chronicle of Max Perkins's time as the book editor at Scribner and his relationship with Thomas Wolfe.

Muddled attempt of recreating a historical literary episode has some good period detail, but most figures are portrayed unsympathetically (especially Jude Law's Thomas Wolfe) and hardly manages to give an impression what the fuss is all about.

Destroyer (2018)

A police detective reconnects with people from an undercover assignment in her distant past in order to make peace.

Dark, intense, downward spiral of an undercover cop is skillfully revealed in slow bits and with a twist ending; Nicole Kidman delivers a remarkably terrifying performance as the downtrodden cop.

The Movies I Watched in December

8 Femmes 2002  5

The Aeronauts 2019  6 

Attack of the Giant Leeches 1959  4

The Autopsy of Jane Doe 2016  6 

Big Ass Spider!  2013  5

Le calde notti di Poppea 1969  4

Ceremony 2010  5 

The Cured 2017  6

Dead Men Walk 1943 5  

Design For Living 1933  7 

Destroyer 2018  7

 

Doctor Zhivago 2002  6

Genius 2016  6 

Gremlins 1984  6 

Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990  7

Hell Is For Heroes 1962  6

The Homesman 2014  7

I Love you Phillip Morris 2009  6 

Ice Spiders 2007  4

The Irishman 2019  9

The Light Between Oceans 2016  6

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 3 2019  7

 

Momentum 2015  6

Pacific Rim: Uprising 2018  6 

Philomena 2013  7 

Repo Men 2010  6

The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior 2008  5 

The Secret Life of Pets 2016 7

 

Silent Night 2012 5
Tri orísky pro Popelku 1973  8

 
The Two Popes 2019  7

Weit. Die Geschichte von einem Weg um die Welt 2017  6

You, Season 2 (2019)

Grace of Monaco (2014)

The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly's crisis of marriage and identity, during a political dispute between Monaco's Prince Rainier III and France's Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco in the early 1960s.

A quite pedestrian depiction of an episode of Monegasque history and Grace Kelly's part in it; Nicole Kidman's fits into the title role effortlessly.

The Movies I Watched in February

Anthropoid (2016) 7

The Big Country (1958)  7

Birth (2004)  7

Black Earth Rising (2018) (TV)  7

BlacKkKlansman (2018)  7

Bron/Boren (2013) (TV)  6
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)  5
Frasier Season 1 (1993) (TV)  8

The Girl With All the Gifts (2016)  6
Heidi (2015)  6
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (2017) (TV) 7

The Messenger (2009)  6
Moonlight (2016)  8

Nightflyers (2018) (TV)  5
Predator (1987)  7

Rabbit Hole (2010)  6
Spring Breakers (2012)  6
La Vache (2016)  6
The Wolfman (2010)  6
You (2018) (TV)  7

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

Simple, but not too remarkable tale about loss and grief; the good cast makes it worth the watch.

Maltin***: "Honest, moving portrait of how a couple deals with grief...Superior acting makes this well worth seeing, despite the somber subject matter." 

Birth (2004)

A young boy attempts to convince a woman that he is her dead husband reborn.

Unusual drama insinuating or rather imagining the possibility of reincarnation skillfully holds its protagonists - and the audience - in a suspended, disquieting state of doubt and belief. 

Maltin***: "Eerie, riveting drama is remarkably effective in building and sustaining a mood of unease - and uncertainty."

Nicole Kidman

Before I Go to Sleep (2014)

A woman wakes up every day, remembering nothing as a result of a traumatic accident in her past, but one day, new terrifying truths emerge that force her to question everyone around her.

Memento-like psychological thriller with no depth, but with a disappointing ending;  Nicole Kidman, however, is very good in the lead role.

Trespass (2011)

As they're held for ransom, a husband and wife's predicament grows more dire amid the discovery of betrayal and deception.

Unpleasant thriller with an ensemble of disagreeable characters relentlessly stomps through its confused plot.

Maltin BOMB: "If there's a point to this unpleasant, endlessly repetitive time-waster, it's that the wealthy are just as corrupt and miserable as their "lessers." But you knew that."

Secret in Their Eyes (2015)

A tight-knit team of rising investigators, along with their supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered.

Unusual Thriller with a twist ending, well executed, but the main attraction are the the tree lead performances.

The Beguiled (2017)

The unexpected arrival of a wounded Union soldier at a girls school in Virginia during the American Civil War leads to jealousy and betrayal.

A remake of Don Siegel's movie of the same title with all the good parts left out; the intention of transforming the story into an example of feminine solidarity backfires by omitting all racial, erotic and social subtexts.

Nicole Kidman

To Die For (1995)

A beautiful but naïve aspiring television personality films a documentary on teenagers with a darker ulterior motive.

Slyly made satire with an excellent performance by Nicole Kidman  has lost some of its bite over time, probably because much of it has come true.

Halliwell*: "A deft satire on the worship of celebrity for its own sake and the way television can elevate the ordinary to heroic status, though it takes aim at an exceptionally easy target - a small-town girl - without managing to hit the bull's-eye."

Maltin**1/2: "Kidman is perfect...this black comedy seems to make all the right moves, but plays out its story with a surprising lack of irony; by the climax it has nothing more to offer."

New Stuff: To Die For

New Stuff: Birth

The Movies I Watched in November

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers 2007 8  

Asterix and Caesar 1985  6  
Bend of the River 1952  8 

Blue Velvet 1986  10  

Class 1983  5 
Coffin Rock 2009  5  
Diplomacy 2014  6  
Disturbia 2007  6  
Free Birds 2013  6  
Hot Spell 1958  7  

Lost Highway 1997  10  

Love Me No More 2008  6 
Night Moves 2013  7  

Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown 1977  6 
Stoker 2013 Feature 7 

The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer 1984  8  

The Condemned 2007 F 5 
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus 2009  6  
The Kid with a Bike 2011  7  

The Woman in the Fifth 2011 6  
Unstoppable 2010  6 
Zoolander 2001  6