By Ray Bennett
TORONTO – “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” is a disappointingly dismal film about a has-been Hollywood actress who has an affair with an on-the-make young British actor while she deals with her fading career and a debilitating illness. Annette Bening plays Gloria Grahame, a frazzled blonde who was typecast as a floozy in 1950s B-pictures, with Jamie Bell as her lover. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
TORONTO – Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” is a science-fiction tale that mixes whimsy with social commentary in constantly surprising ways but with ideas so scattershot that they never adhere as a satisfying drama. His filmmaking is so imaginative, however, that it’s a movie well worth seeing. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
TORONTO – That Judy Dench stars as the venerable English queen in “Victoria and Albert” tells you all you need to know about what to expect from another tale of one of the widowed monarch’s odd friendships. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
TORONTO – Joyless, witless and pointless, “Suburbicon” is a would-be black comedy that is simply murky and not in the least comic. It boasts some big names – director George Clooney, stars Matt Damon and Julianne Moore (pictured), and co-writers Joel and Ethan Coen – but were it not for Alexandre Desplat’s entertaining score, it would be a complete waste of time. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
TORONTO: “Mudbound” is set in the Mississippi Delta in the 1940s but with torrential rain, deeply ingrained racial hostility and changes wrought by World War II, it’s no treat to beat your feet. Two poor families – one white, one black – strive to find a little joy amidst chronic misery but simmering tensions lead to a violent conflict.
Slow-moving but involving, the film details the painful existence that besets both families as they struggle to make a living on a pitiless farming landscape. The central drama, true of many places when men came home from that war, is how to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Patrick Swayze jumped menacingly from the corral fence to the dusty ground of his ranch in the flats next to the Angeles Forest in La Canada. “Steve McQueen said what?” he said. “There’s nothing tough about making movies,” I repeated. Swayze shook his head. “God, I loved that man but that sounds like bullshit to me.”
That was a long time ago before Swayze had hits like “Dirty Dancing”, “Ghost” and “Point Break”. He would have turned 65 today but Swayze died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 57 in 2009. When I spent a day with him in 1985, when he was 33, he was full of life, feisty and combative. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – The bleak but beautiful frozen wilds of Utah substitute readily for Montana in Taylor Sheridan’s taut, violent and gripping crime drama “Wind River” in which Jeremy Renner is both cool and moving as a troubled hunter who helps Elizabeth Olsen’s plausible FBI agent on the trail of a murderer and rapist. Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Standing alone in the middle of the stalls before a concert in Ghent, I saw the petite figure of a woman enter the hall and stroll to the seat directly in front of me. She turned and put out her right hand. “Allo,” she said. “I’m Jeanne Moreau.” Continue reading
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” is a spectacular fireworks show filled with exciting action but as a record of an iconic World War II event it falls short and as human drama it’s a damp squib.
When fighter planes are screaming, bombs are exploding and bullets are flying, it’s pulsating stuff with a gut-punching battle between sound effects and Hans Zimmer’s score, which the composer wins through sheer verve and ingenuity. Continue reading
Do film critics matter any more?
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – When everyone is a critic, who needs critics?
It’s a question asked more and more in the movie industry as the ranks of mainstream critics dwindle and the tide of those with something to say online surges ever stronger.
The consensus is that some critics do still matter but their employers, the film industry and the general public hold them in less esteem than they used to. Meanwhile, everyone’s on Facebook. And Twitter. And YouTube. And Instagram. Continue reading →