OL PARKER Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB.5. United Kingdom/USA, 2018. Legendary Entertainment, Universal. Story by Richard Curtis, Ol Parker, Catherine Johnson, Screenplay by Ol Parker, based on a conception by Judy Craymer from the stage musical by Catherine Johnson. Cinematography by Robert D. Yeoman. Produced by Judy Craymer, Gary Goetzman. Music by Benny Andersson, Anne Dudley, Bjorn Ulvaeus. Production Design by…
Tag: Meryl Streep
The Post (2017)
STEVEN SPIELBERG Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB. United Kingdom/USA, 2017. Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks, Participant Media, Pascal Pictures, Star Thrower Entertainment, River Road Entertainment. Screenplay by Liz Hannah, Josh Singer. Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski. Produced by Kristie Macosko Krieger, Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg. Music by John Williams. Production Design by Rick Carter. Costume Design by Ann Roth. Film Editing by Sarah Broshar, Michael Kahn. Academy Awards 2017. Golden…
The Guardian Brothers (Xiao men shen) (2016)
GARY WANG Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB. China, 2016. Light Chaser Animation Studios. Screenplay by Dan Edelstein, Terrence Stone, Gary Wang. Produced by Zhou Yu. Music by Nathan Wang. Film Editing by Ji Zhao. A modern world no longer interested in the spiritual beliefs of its ancestors has relegated guardian spirits to a realm in which they concern themselves only with…
Everything Is Copy
BBBBB (out of 5) Nora Ephron died in 2012 at the age of 71 of leukemia, and the shocking news of her death was compounded by the revelation that her illness was something she had kept from her family and friends for years. For a woman whose constant use of the titular mantra, one she learned from…
Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
STEPHEN FREARS Bil’s rating (out of 5): BBB. United Kingdom, 2016. Qwerty Films, Pathe Pictures International, BBC Films. Screenplay by Nicholas Martin. Cinematography by Danny Cohen. Produced by Michael Kuhn, Tracey Seaward. Music by Alexandre Desplat. Production Design by Alan MacDonald. Costume Design by Consolata Boyle. Film Editing by Valerio Bonelli. Academy Awards 2016. Golden Globe Awards 2016. Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) was a New York socialite…
Ricki And The Flash
BB (out of 5) Years after she walked out on her husband and three kids to pursue a career as a rock star, Meryl Streep is playing dive bars in Tarzana and about to file bankruptcy, so muddled about her relationship with her guitarist boyfriend (Rick Springfield) that she can barely keep from humiliating him onstage…
The Homesman
B.5 (out of 5) Three women are driven mad by the hardships of carving out a life on the unforgiving terrain of the mid-nineteenth century American frontier, prompting their husbands to send them back east to their families. Hilary Swank plays an independent farmer who volunteers to be their escort, along the way taking on the…
Into The Woods
BBB (out of 5) The ever-popular Tony Award-winning Broadway musical has finally made its way to the big screen via the purveyor of the modern movie singalong, Rob Marshall. It keeps the plotting essentially the same to the original show, with a comprehensive collection of classic fairy tales thrown into a jumble surrounding the needs…
The Giver
BBB (out of 5) In this humorless update of Logan’s Run, Brenton Thwaites plays a young man who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic society, humanity having perfected cohabitation on a reduced Earth by removing all traces of emotional insecurity. Medication keeps all passions at their lowest possible levels, humans are born factory-style in labs and…
Prime
BB (out of 5) Uma Thurman visits her psychiatrist (Meryl Streep) to deal with the pain of her recent divorce, which is then alleviated somewhat by her striking up a romance with a cute 23 year-old (Bryan Greenberg) she meets at a movie theatre. What she does not know is that her new boyfriend is her therapist’s…
Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events
BBBB (out of 5) The influence of Tim Burton’s work can be felt on every inch of this thoroughly enjoyable children’s horror film, so much so that you’ll wonder if Burton had anything to do with the production (he didn’t, but the production designer, costume designer and cinematographer of Sleepy Hollow are employed here which…
Doubt
BBBB (out of 5) Tradition clashes with modern thinking at a Catholic school run by nuns in 1960s New York City. Priest Philip Seymour Hoffman gives sermons that capture and stir the emotions of his parishioners with their tolerance for scepticism and fluidity in Catholic belief, raising a flag in the mind of the hard-edged,…
