Though Victor Hugo’s classic novel—and its themes of the haves and have-nots, challenging a corrupt authority and the oppression of poverty—factor into Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables, the film is not another remake of the story of Jean Val Jean, Inspector Javert and company. Instead, the debut feature ...
Archives for January 2020
Review: Invisible Life
A sweeping drama about two sisters who lose track of each other but never forget one another, Invisible Life navigates the internal and external lives of two very different women connected in ways no one but them can understand. Though directed and written by a man (Karim Aïnouz, who co-wrote with ...
Review: Troop Zero
Jim Gaffigan has no fewer than nine credits to his name for 2019, from the beautifully rendered Light From Light to a voice role in Playmobil: The Movie, one of the year’s biggest flops. Somewhere in between is Troop Zero, a direct-to-Amazon Prime feature film about a young girl ...
Review: Just Mercy
It's a busy time of year at the movies, as Oscar nominations are imminent and theaters are booked with that odd mix of year-end must-see movies still playing on the big screen and the kind of low-brow stuff weekends in January are made for. Into this fray comes Just Mercy, the latest from ...
2019 [in films]
For the last three years, I've managed to watch more films than I did the year before. In 2017, I saw 181 films. In 2018, it was 182. In 2019, I watched 184 films in all, not counting rewatches and works in progress. I know this because I'm a big old nerd and I keep track of what I see in not one ...