Napoleon
SimilarA Beautiful Mind (2001), A Real Young Girl (1976), Almost Famous (2000), Apollo 13 (1995),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Brubaker (1980), Copying Beethoven (2006), Dances with Wolves (1990), Erin Brockovich (2000), Freedom Writers (2007), Gandhi (1982), GoodFellas (1990), Gridiron Gang (2006), Manhattan (1979), Mississippi Burning (1988), Monster (2003), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Paris Can Wait (2016), Raging Bull (1980), Schindler's List (1993), Sissi (1955), The Elephant Man (1980), The Last Emperor (1987), The Pianist (2002), The Straight Story (1999), Titanic (1997),
Watch afterAquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023),
Barbie (2023) Killers of the Flower Moon (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Society of the Snow (2023), The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), The Killer (2023), The Marvels (2023), Wonka (2023),
StudioApple Studios,
Ridley Scott’s surprisingly hollow biopic of the French military commander falters as a character piece and comes shy of victory as an epic.
For a film with as many contradictions as Napoleon, it’s odd for it to be so straightforward. It covers 28 years, but it never feels like a lot of changes. It’s over two and a half hours, which, while not a herculean runtime, never entirely slows down. Perhaps it’s because it never really gets started. Ridley Scott’s latest opens with a public decapitation of Marie Antoinette (Catherine Walker), giving way to the 1793 Siege of Toulon. The violence is often unsparingly graphic, so why, then, does it feel so cosmetic? Shouldn’t a live horse eviscerated by a cannonball to the chest do something to the viewer?
Maybe not when there’s such little context. If Napoleon is one thing, it’s episodic—ahistorical, even. David Scarpa’s script begins in the trenches and is content on staying there. Everyone and everything are simply window dressing. That includes Napoleon Bonaparte himself (Joaquin Phoenix), whom the film oversimplifies from intrinsically flawed leader to wholly externalized man-child. After the Siege, he wins the affections of Joséphine de Beauharnais (Vanessa Kirby). The two soon marry. Continue Reading →
Flora and Son
SimilarAmélie (2001),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Bugsy Malone (1976), Chicago (2002), Dirty Dancing (1987), Enchanted (2007), Erin Brockovich (2000), Gridiron Gang (2006), La Vie en Rose (2007), Mary Poppins (1964), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Random Harvest (1942), Shall We Dance? (2004), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Watch afterEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Saw X (2023), Shortcomings (2023),
StudioFilmNation Entertainment,
About 75 minutes into Flora and Son, its script veers toward the self-reflexive. “What movie are you in?” Flora (Eve Hewson) snaps. “One without you in it,” her son, Max (Orén Kinlan), replies. This sort of exchange fits holistically into writer-director John Carney’s latest. It’s self-aware, sure, but it’s not meta. Like most of the film’s writing, it is entirely transparent in its machinations, going so far as to declare them at points. Supporting characters largely function as symbols rather than people. Continue Reading →
Causeway
We’re all living in the looming shadows of our past. The actions or mistakes we undertake today shape our tomorrow. It’s as true for the poorest pauper as it is for the mightiest king, and Causeway protagonist Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence) is no exception. Formerly deployed to the Middle East as a soldier, she’s come home to New Orleans after suffering a brain injury. The ensuing movie’s emphasis on coping with the long-term effects of trauma is quietly established through Causeway beginning not with a grisly accident overseas, but rather with a shell-shocked Lynsey waiting for a taxi in America. Continue Reading →