Anton Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL is great material for a first-rate film. Director Michael Mayer’s screen adaptation of Chekhov’s 1896 play is a visually lovely production with a top-tier cast with wonderful locations, sets and costumes. “The Seagull”was the first of Chekhov’s four great plays, a work full of human meaning, and one of the great…
– By Cate Marquis – RBG is a delightful, inspiring documentary on Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the Notorious RBG, giving us the backstory of the 84-year-old Supreme Court justice who has become a pop culture icon. Long before she became known as the Notorious RBG, Ginsberg was a brilliant legal mind who was a courtroom ground-breaker in…
– By Cate Marquis – The heartbreaking romantic drama ON CHESIL BEACH stars Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle as a young couple in the early 1960s, whose marriage feels the impact that the sexual attitudes of a time period can have on love. Based on Ian McEwan’s 2007 Booker Prize-winning novella. McEwan also wrote the…
**** (out of 5) stars – (R) – By Mark Glass – The first film about this Marvel Comics superhero (of sorts) is one of my all-time favorite action comedies. Ryan Reynolds – not known for acting as much as hunkiness – found the perfect role, allowing him to be physical, hilarious, and self-satirical, wrapped…
– By Cate Marquis – In DISOBEDIENCE, Rachel Weisz stars as a woman who returns to her Orthodox Jewish community in London for the funeral of her father, a revered rabbi. Years earlier, Ronit (Weisz) had left the community she had grown up in, forced out over a sexual attraction to another girl, Esti (Rachel…
– By Mark Glass – RATING: 3 out of 5 stars (R) As a reminder, my ratings aren’t always about the overall artistic merit of the covered film. In the case of intentionally dumb, gross comedies like this, or other niche fare, I tend to award stars on how good a job they do in…
– By Cate Marquis – Jon Hamm shines in political thriller “Beirut” Jon Hamm finally gets the leading man role he has long deserved, in the Middle East-set thriller BEIRUT. It should have happened long ago for the former St. Louisan, based on his unforgettable turn in MAD MEN, if nothing else. Hamm is excellent…
– By Cate Marquis – Director Stephen Frears’ funny, charming VICTORIA AND ABDUL was inspired by a real event late in the life of Queen Victoria, when the aging British monarch had her mood brighten by the arrival of a visitor from India, much to the dismay of her advisers and her son, the crown…
– By Mark Glass – Those of us old enough to remember the highly-publicized 1973 tennis matches between Bobby Riggs and the top two professional women will find this dramedy treatment of those lives and times highly entertaining…as were the events when they unfolded. Younger viewers may be surprised by how drastically our culture…
– By Cate Marquis – When divorce laws loosened and sexual mores changed in the ’60s and ’70s, there was a spate of “why marry” films. Although they had contemporary settings, the comedies generally followed the outline of 18th century bedroom farce, with warring couples, bed-hopping and true love winning in the end. Director/writer/star Lake…
Magazine Newspaper Copyright
