Directed by: Tom Hooper Eddie Redmayne, who won every award out there for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist plagued by Lou Gehrig’s disease, in last year’s Theory of Everything, anchors this film about another historical figure. Lilli Elbe...

Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu’ Last year’s Oscar winner for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture has put into the ring another masterpiece of filmmaking art. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of...

Directed by: Todd Haynes Carol is the most recent film of Todd Haynes, a darling of the higher end independent film world. Haynes seems fascinated with the suburban housewife who “seems to have it all” but in fact lives a life that is either crumbling around her,...

Selma Directed by Ava DuVernay; Starring David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, Coman Domingo; 2014; PG-13 for disturbing thematic material including violence, a suggestive moment, and brief strong language. DVD released May, 2015. Straight Outta Compton Directed...

Directed by: James Mangold In my last blog post, I announced this series of nine posts, one on each of the films nominated for Best Picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. We will look at the nine movies in alphabetical order, starting with the...

Directed by: Martin Scorsese I love that the IMDb plot outline entry for this picture is a simple sentence: “A mob hitman recalls his possible involvement with the slaying of Jimmy Hoffa.” Like most simple sentences (that are true anyway), it hides a plethora of...

Directed by: Taiki Waititi. JoJo Rabbit is perhaps the strangest, most disconcerting of the nine nominees for Best Picture. Framed around the thought-life of a ten-year old boy in a small town in Nazi Germany, JoJo dips in and out of his imaginary world, often resting...

Directed by: Todd Phillips Joker centers on the most powerful performance of 2019 in film: Joaquin Phoenix is the title character, and he deservedly won the Oscar for Best Actor. Phoenix is in almost every frame of the film and has been asked to play a character so...

Directed by: Greta Gerwig Little Women has perhaps the most controversy surrounding it of this year’s nominees because of the Academy’s failure to nominate its director, Greta Gerwig, for the award given to the best director of the year. No women were nominated, and...

Directed by:  Noah Baumbach Marriage Story is the powerful, but flawed, telling of a marriage falling apart in the post-modern age. One of the two Netflix entries in the Best Picture race, it fits very well on the small screen with a lot of two-shot, interior location...