You would never know it from what the multiplexes were showing in the first 10 months of 2017, but with a November and December delivering a flurry of quality films, this became a top-notch year at the movies. Here are my 10 favorites, with plenty more just barely not making the cut. 1. The Shape of Water – Tapping into the magic realism and political fantasy that fueled his … [Read more...]
‘Last Flag Flying’: Grief and hope, down to the last detail
As Mark Twain reputedly said, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I thought about this aphorism more than once during Last Flag Flying, Richard Linklater’s alternately amusing and somber heartstring-tugger about the victims of America’s misbegotten wars. Iraq was hardly a repeat of Vietnam, but it rhymed with bitter lucidity: two bloody occupations of nations … [Read more...]