With The Silver-Linings Playbook and now Wayne Blair’s THE SAPPHIRES, Harvey Weinstein may have the feel-good part of the coming awards season locked down.  This slight but charming true story (or at least “inspired by” one) about an Australian singing group is like the happytime version of Dreamgirls. The story is set in 1968 Australia, a time when, […]

  THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (Focus/Universal) – Opens November 7  – Worth A Ticket There’s a benefit but also a burden to being clear-cut “Oscar bait.”  At this point we all know the kinds of movies the Academy looks upon with favor:  serious biographies, period pieces, leading actors who contort themselves in one way or […]

  THE SUNLIT NIGHT (no distrib):  The last thing one would have expected from the director of the genuinely scabrous Wetlands was a follow-up that seems to trying to meld NY Jewish comedy with the kind of enchanted romcom spirit of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.  But that’s what David Wnendt has given us, and the […]

  FAHRENHEIT 11/9 (Midwestern – opens September 21):  In the course of Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael Moore takes a shot at Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves for admitting that Donald Trump has been good for their businesses, but it’s a weakness of Moore that he lacks the self-knowledge to recognize that the same is true for […]

  TOUCHY FEELY offers the gifted writer/director Lynn Shelton taking herself very, very seriously for the most part.  It turns out to be a less effective mode for her than those of her recent small-scale comedies Humpday and Your Sister’s Sister, which had marvelously well-judged tones.  (In her more mainstream work, she recently directed a […]

  FORD VS. FERRARI (20th Century Fox/Disney – November 15):  If the Academy decides to award James Mangold’s Ford vs. Ferrari, which is certainly a possibility, it will be able to have some metaphorical cake and eat it too.  FvsF is both a first-rate example of Hollywood corporate entertainment and a story that questions what […]

  MAGIC MAGIC never really makes clear what it intends to be, but it’s awfully fascinating to watch. Written and directed by the prolific Sebastian Silva, who had two films at Sundance this year (the other was the well-received Crystal Fairy), and who is best known for his art-house success The Maid, Magic is set […]

  DARKEST HOUR (Focus/Universal – Nov. 22):  A shameless piece of rabble-rousing Hollywood biography, directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten, and served hot on a platter to Oscar voters.  The subject is Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman), and the terrain is the first few weeks of his tenure as Prime Minister, doubted by […]