You owe it to yourself to see Short Term 12. The world gains empathy and understanding every time someone watches it for the first time. It is that rare perfect film –perfect just the way it is– that looks at people with piercing clarity and boundless compassion at the same time.
Everybody Knows takes us to a Spanish village, deep in wine country, where a family is reunited, old grudges come to the surface, the unthinkable happens, and all that was unsaid is, inevitably, said.
What a delight, what a rare privilege, to see a work of art so full to the brim with talent. This is a movie that knows how to find the cosmic in the commonplace, the monumental in the smallest interactions. It is a tragedy, but it is also, simply, life.
The Tale is a study of memory and trauma, and how the two grapple with each other. The way it weaves a story from these threads, dipping in and out of the past so much like our minds do, is nothing short of masterful.
The film succeeds by letting these characters reconnect slowly, naturally, awkwardly, by giving them space to circle each other; it looks at them with sympathy, not with judgement.
On Chesil Beach recounts the courtship of two young people who have little affinity, nothing in common, and seem to like each other less, not more, as their idyll advances.
Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody made a movie with Charlize Theron and Mackenzie Davis in it, so what’s a body to do? Go see it, obviously.
It warms my heart that there are movies like Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon: movies that are affectionate, optimistic, that carry their heart on their sleeve, that feel empathy and compassion for all their characters, not just their protagonists.
I wasn’t halfway through the movie when I said to myself, “This is what I come to the movies for.” Here’s a film that is intimate, personal, and yet truthful and consequential.
The Film Tower 