7
Regardless of the notion that its young target audience is more inclined to stream than to head out to a theater, writer/director Craig Johnson is allowed to play more liberally with profanity, engage with his characters’ sex lives more frankly, and create broadly irreverent running jokes that a major studio would cull into a nicer package.
7
Hearts Beat Loud presents itself as a witty and reassuring tonic.
7.5
Qu films with a purposefully unsettling calmness, serving as a gateway to the clear and present anger below.
7.5
A budding, contemplative study of humans reconciling nature and determination reconciling fate, Chloé Zhao’s The Rider impresses in its quietest moments.
7.5
Because Love After Love is centered on the constant reversion to its characters’ shortcomings, it forces us to see everything through moments that devolve through inflated egos or simple misunderstandings, charged by personal pain.
5.5
It’s hard to discern what Allure wants to say. Once it introduces its idea of abuse as a vicious cycle, it can only re-manifest that notion in different ways because it lacks the conceptual discipline to craft interlocking story arcs.
We’ve arrived at the end of one of the most tumultuous awards seasons in quite some time. While many of the races have been sewn up, some are only deceptively safe, while others – including Best Picture – remain quite visibly
7
Shot in gorgeously high-contrast, black-and-white style, the realms of good and evil are reflected in bright colors that all but blend into snow and ice, with darker tones seeping off the screen into an infinite abyss.
5.5
The movie is filled with with dry humor and awkward encounters, and they prove to be amusing in the abstract, although we can’t help but feel that this levity is used as an excuse to avoid the plot’s more complex implications.
6
It’s a gently mounted series of observational moments, less of a congealed, thesis-based documentary and more of a video diary.
6
Shephard’s direction dips into the conniving twists and sudsy appeal of it all, playfully skirting the line between caustic entertainment and prurient antagonism.
Continuing our 2017 wrap-up spectacular is Ken Bakely‘s top 10 films of 2017.
1. Personal Shopper – Personal Shopper is an enveloping meditation on life and death, location and emotion, and the physical and the spiritual. It’s brought to life through graceful
6
There’s something fun about predicting the world of the future. We know our guesses will be massively off, but through our visions clouded by our favorite works of sci-fi, we think forward and see a world dramatically different from our own.
6.5
A fascinating but sparse documentary that combines talking-head interviews with a plethora of archival footage.
6
Murder on the Orient Express winds up on that mid-level ground: mixing vivid visuals with a obligated script, quick line readings with sluggish storytelling, and a crackerjack caper with an uninspired mood.
7
Most Beautiful Island has many illusions to perform, nerves to rattle and setpieces to conjure up.
