The Film Print

I really never thought I'd say this but Kevin Hart is the best thing in this movie, I was dumbfounded by how good his performance was.  The Upside  is every bit as cliched, manipulative, and contrived as you would expect it to be and it also doesn't help that the film is grotesquely shot. However, the film is breezy and harmless enough that it at the very least granted me with a laid back lightly chuckling 2 hours. Cranston, Kidman, and Farahani are all pretty good but like I said before, Hart is the absolute standout and I'm not even really a supporter of his. I'm not really a fan of this particular brand of filmmaking but this will definitely hit the spot for many sappy film lovers. The entirety of Roy Thomson Hall was exploding with laughter from beginning to end, so I'm almost positive that this will be a massive hit with general audiences enough for it to become some sort of Oscar darling.

Euphoria   boasts a bold concept and an amazing cast but it doesn't really seem to know what to do with it. It's unfocused and uneven making the exceptionally directed finale feel very bland and empty. Vikander and Green are great but their character writing is just lazy and shallow. It has a few bright moments but this is mostly just a very banal experience with one of the worst final music cues I've ever heard (not that that matters too much but it made me leave on a really sour note). By the time the film finished, I still had not the slightest fucking idea what it was trying to accomplish. Egregiously predictable and unsubtle. I expected a lot more from Lisa Langseth.

A wonderfully surreal and tragic satire. Every scene is full of remarkably bold choices they pay off hugely. This was such a confident and captivating film, that I was genuinely shell shocked to learn that it was a feature debut.  I Am Not a Witch   is sure to fly under most peoples radars but it deserves the attention of every film fan looking for a profound and counter-intuitive example of original independent filmmaking. I am a mess from the last few frames of this film.

Hirokazu Koreeda's  The Third Murder  is a break from his usual quiet family drama explorations that I've become very used to. Here, we have murder mystery/courtroom drama and the turnout is unfortunately procedural but nonetheless quite engrossing. At times it can feel like a TV movie and the pacing is rather brutal but Koreeda does a brilliant job and constantly finding ways to surprise his audience and have it not feel contrived. It's imperfect but certainly a thought-provoking and intriguingly twisty movie. Think of an episode of Law & Order but exceptionally directed and acted. The truth is frequently the hardest thing to understand.

I find myself a bit taken a back by the fact that I actually really enjoyed a Joseph Khan movie for once.  Bodied  is still problematic as hell and goes on for WAY too long but it has a sense of personality, purpose, and energy. It's mostly entertaining and gives a really intriguing insight into a really unique and emotional subculture. It's a much better cultural and social satire than  Detention  but it still isn't quite as groundbreaking as it seems to think it is.

Cinematic experiences don't really get as pure as this.  Call Me By Your Name   is one of the most honest, fully realized, and emotional films I've seem tackle what it means to go through a sexual awakening. Aesthetically, the film is a wonderland. So many lush shots of beautiful Northern Italian landscapes. Armie Hammer is at peak form, Timothee Chalamet is a revelation, and Michael Stuhlbarg gives one of the absolute finest monologues in cinematic history. One of the best directed films that I've come across this year. There isn't much more that I can say that people haven't already said. Believe the hype. This film is a marvel.