May 1940: Hitler is riding roughshod across Europe, gobbling up territory like an insatiable monster. Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Denmark have all fallen. Belgium, Holland, and France are falling. Britain is next. England’s current Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, wants to … Continue reading DARKEST HOUR
There is a scene roughly halfway through Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 backstage masterpiece The Red Shoes where Ballet Russe impresario Lermontov comforts his understandably nervous principal dancer, Vicky Page. “Nothing matters by the music,” Lermontov assures her. He hums … Continue reading BABY DRIVER
The Danish Girl is easily director Tom Hooper’s most interesting movie, though that doesn’t say very much. Dramatizing the world’s first known gender reassignment surgery, Hooper explores the story from an intimate setting, concerning himself largely with the marital plight of … Continue reading THE DANISH GIRL
Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) is a sloppy swindler, a sloppy drunk, and even a sloppy murderer. He and his much younger wife, Colette (Kirsten Dunst), wander the ruins of the Acropolis when they catch the eye of Rydal (Oscar Isaac), … Continue reading THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY
There is no one reason we go to the movies. Every viewer seeks something different. Most go to have their lives and worlds reflected back at them. They see the bad and heed the warning signs, they see the good … Continue reading RUSH
Michael J. Cinema 