Director Joseph Kosinski brings a grand visual scope and a great sense of energy to a film that borrows liberally from previous science fiction classics.
Tag: Morgan Freeman
Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’ on Amazon Prime
Always one of America’s most undervalued directors, Clint Eastwood proved himself American cinema’s national treasure in the third act of his impressive career. Million Dollar Baby (2004), an understated, unpretentious, powerfully told drama, adapted from F.X. Toole stories by Paul Haggis, earned Eastwood his second round of Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture (his […]
Last chance: Morgan Freeman is Nelson Mandella in ‘Invictus’ on Netflix
Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandella as the newly-elected President of South Africa in Invictus (2009), Clint Eastwood’s reverent tribute to Nelson Mandella’s efforts to unite post-apartheid South Africa. This isn’t a biography of Mandella. Audiences come to the film with the understanding that Nelson Mandella spent 24 years in prison for protesting South Africa’s apartheid […]
‘The Dark Knight’ vs. The Joker on Hulu
Superhero films became increasingly sophisticated and decidedly darker as they become (for better or worse) a full-fledged genre in the 2000s. With Batman Begins, writer/director Christopher Nolan (drawing inspiration from the revisionist Batman comic books by Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb) rebooted the Batman mythos for the big screen, bringing the often lighthearted hero back […]
‘Batman Begins’ – Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight on Hulu
One of the defining films in the elevation of comic book movies to adult fare, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) rebooted the Batman mythos for the big screen, bringing the often lighthearted hero back to the shadows, both figuratively and literally. It’s quite a leap from the previous Batman revival launched by Tim Burton’s 1989 […]
‘The Dark Knight Rises’ – the trilogy concludes on HBO Max
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) doesn’t want for ambition. The culmination of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of high-minded comic book superhero action spectacles by way of pop-art social commentary, it pits The Batman (a terse Christian Bale) against Bane (Tom Hardy as a musclebound mountain in a creepy mask), a self-appointed horseman of the apocalypse. Bane […]
‘Gone Baby Gone’ on Paramount+
Ben Affleck made a confident and compelling directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone (2007), his adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s mystery novel about a pair of young private detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) hired to look for the missing daughter of a junkie mother (Amy Ryan, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance). It’s […]
Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning ‘Unforgiven’ on HBO Max
“I don’t deserve this, to die like this. I was building a house.” “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” Clint Eastwood’s 1992 western Unforgiven earned the director his first Oscars, for Best Picture and Best Director. In a way, it finally made official what critics and fans had slowly come to realize over the last […]
‘Red’ – Bruce Willis is deadly funny on Showtime Anytime
Red (2010) isn’t a name (or a color) in this comic-book movie about retired covert agents who are roused back to action to teach the new breed a thing or two about the spy game. It’s a designation that stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous.” Bruce Willis headlines an ensemble that includes John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman […]
‘The Civil War’ – Ken Burns’s nonfiction epic on Netflix
The Civil War (1990) – Ken Burns’s epic documentary miniseries is arguably the most influential piece of historical non-fiction ever produced for television. For one week in 1990 it had the rapt attention of the nation and the nation’s political leaders (there was a run on videotape in Washington D.C. the week it premiered) and […]