TOP TEN FILMS of 2021 – in no particular order

Belfast

The Hand of God

Coda … read more

THE LOST DAUGHTER ♕ ♚ ♛ 1/2

Whatever Leda (Olivia Coleman) might be feeling the film opens on her feeling freedom from cruising down the highway to a sun-drenched Greek island resort.  Lyle (Ed Harris) the resort manager greets her, carrying her luggage full of books to her room.  Leda is a divorced, professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and this is her idyllic escape except one can never truly escape the challenges of motherhood vs work.   Especially when a boisterous Italian family plops down on a nearby beach blanket … read more

DON’T LOOK UP ♕ ♚ ♛ 1/2

We’ve seen a lot of ‘end of the world’ disaster movies in our times and most of them star Will Smith, trying to make sense as he sifts through the rubble of the Statue of Liberty, while we stare at the big screen chomping popcorn.  But our world has changed…and the disaster films are becoming more a true-life probability.  So perhaps that’s why there’s been so much disdain for Adam McKay’s latest Netflix masterpiece, Don’t Look Up.    People don’t want to know what they don’t want to know…

Billed as a comedy (or at the very least a dramedy) it’s not too … read more 

CODA ♕ ♚ ♛ 1/2

In this charmingly authentic, and working-class film about a teenage daughter of deaf parents, young Ruby (Emilia Jones) is torn between family obligation and dreams.

Not since The Perfect Storm has their been a story set in Gloucester about the hard life of fishermen.  Ruby’s parents (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin) are deaf…they depend on Ruby to operate … read more

BELFAST  ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛

Buddy (Jude Hill) is just an ordinary boy growing up in Belfast, playing stickball in the street, his mother, calling him in for ‘tea’ or supper.  But his life is juxtaposed by the tumultuous times; the surrounding rallies, bombings and beatings in 1969, when Protestants want Catholics out of their neighborhoods. … read more

ROADRUNNER: A Film About Anthony Bourdain ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛

In real life he was an incredible chef, a soul-seeker, hungry for truth and hungry for life…which is why we beg the question “Why did he do it?”  In this poignant documentary directed by Morgan Neville about the life and sadly, the death, of Anthony Bourdain we begin to understand that answer. …read more

GODZILLA VS. KONG

(Reviewed by our guest critic, The Movie Knight)

Godzilla is on the attack! The King of the Monsters once thought to be our savior is now attacking places like Apex Cybernetics for no apparent reason. Who can save us?

Meanwhile, King Kong is still living on Skull Island. He has aged since we last saw him but  … read more

 

INDEPENDENTS ♛♛♛♛

Chance meetings are everything.  When three struggling singers accidentally (or is it fated?) meet, they have a chance to rekindle their fading dreams of making it in the music business.  And isn’t there a little bit of faded dream in all of us?   

Rich (Rich Price) is an English teacher by day and a guitar strummer by night.  Just ask the old lady living upstairs who bangs on his ceiling. Greg (Greg Naughton) is a tree surgeon with a broken hear, just longing to star in a band.  And then there’s Brian (Brian Chartrand) a hitchhiker who is part of the karma in the three connecting.  Soon a band is formed and they’re off on a road trip to get to an LA gig on time.  Think elements of … read more

LAND ♛♛♛

When we think of Robin Wright, we think of that perfectly coifed blonde head of hair styled in a ‘bob.’ We think of powerful films like Wonder Woman, Blade Runner and most certainly House of Cards where Claire Underwood click clacks the White House hallways in 6-inch stilettos. But in this, Wright shows … read more

OUR FRIEND ♛

Based on a 2015 Esquire article written by Matthew Teague, this ‘Debbie Downer’ of a film that shows you really can feel more doom and gloom on top of COVID.

It’s fall of 2013 when the tide turns, the autumn arrives and life seems fine until we cut to Matt Teague (Casey Affleck) unable to handle the news that his wife Nicole Teague (Dakota Johnson) is dying. She’s got six months to live. She tells her husband …read more 

AMMONITE ♔ ♕ ♚

It’s hot love in a cold climate, along the Jurassic coast of Lyme, West Dorset sea, where Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) collects fossils and then, literally, a lover.

Charlotte Murchison (Saorise Ronan) is the wife of Roderick Murchinson (James McArdle) a scientist — “A man of the new world.” … read more

LET HIM GO ♚ ♛♚ ♛

Make no mistake about it this is Diane Lane’s film as a woman – both defiant and determined – fighting for what is hers.

It’s a slow-paced life in Montana, or Wyoming, or whatever mountainous God’s country that retired sheriff George Blackledge (Kevin Costner) and his wife, Margaret (Diane Lane) reside in.  They have their share of daily tragedies, where … read more

NEVER REALLY SOMETIMES ALWAYS ♚ ♛

What begins as an urgent and necessary little film about a woman’s right to choose, soon turns into a plot that will send any frightened, confused and pregnant girl running to a corner in her room and determined to keep her unborn baby.

The story opens with the awkwardness … read more

Wonder Woman 1984 ♚ ♛

(reviewed by our Guest Critic: The Movie Knight) If any year needed a superhero, 2020 would be it. Ordinarily the cinemas would be flooded with them. In February we got Birds of Prey: (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). A movie that proved once again that not only can a female driven picture succeed in this genre, one rated-R can too. Then Covid happened and that was the end of comic book movies and all others as well, or so it seemed. Then, Warner Brothers announced … read more

Nomadland ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛

What is a Nomad exactly?  Webster’s defines the word as a noun. ‘A member of a people or tribe that has no permanent abode but moves about from place to place, usually seasonally and often following a traditional route  to the state of the pasturage or food supply.’

And that pretty much sums up the newly sought-out life of Fern, portrayed by Frances McDormand, a name you’ll be hearing very shortly associated with Oscar Nominated Actress yet again.  A 60-something widow, Fern is cashing it all in (with what little cash she has) and living out of her white van, driving mainly … read more

The Last Vermeer ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛

If The Queen’s Gambit is an intoxicating study of Chess, then The Last Vermeer is a fascinating study behind the art world’s finest rip offs.

Based on a true and incredibly story that makes us question the authenticity of all museum art, the film’s opening takes place May 29, 1945, three weeks after Hitler’s Reich. While Joseph Piller (Claes Bang), a Dutch Jew, was fighting in the Resistance during the Second World War, the witty, debonair aesthete, Han van Meegeren (Guy Pearce) was hosting hedonistic soirées and selling Dutch art treasures to Hermann Goring and other top Nazis.

Following the war, Piller becomes an investigator assigned the task of … read more

On the Rocks ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛

Though a predictable ending from the get-go, Writer & Director, Sophia Coppola, delivers another pedigreed and thought-provoking, relationship intense, dramedy.

At the start of the film, the voice over is that of (Felix) Bill Murray expressing to his daughter: “Don’t give yourself to any boys until you get married. Then, you’re still mine.” … read more

The War with Grandpa ♕ ♚ 1/2

Years ago, I was discussing the great acting career of Robert DeNiro with adult friends, when my daughters chimed in and said, “Oh, we know him. He’s the dad in ‘Meet the Parents!’ Eekkk!

Now it gets worse.  DeNiro plays Grandpa, moved in with his son-in-law, Arthur (Robert Riggle) and his daughter, Sally (Uma Thurman) and their three children… read more

Seberg ♔ ♕ ♚

Kristen Stewart, no longer the teenage Twilight heartthrob, dons short-cropped and frosted hair in the very mature and controversial role of Jean Seberg, the American actress, turned Black Panther supporter.

The film opens on the flames of Joan of Arc, perhaps Seberg’s most famous role, which is ironic given her own life with go up in celluloid flames… read more