5 Best Movies To Watch After Chariots of Fire (1981)
The Burial
Whenever a crowd pleasing movie hits theaters or streaming, people lament, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.” Often, these people refer to middle-of-the-road movies from the 80s and 90s, the type of film that would play on cable television in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, something that people watch over and over again, simply because it makes them feel lighter. The Burial, the new courtroom drama from writer/director Maggie Betts, falls firmly into this category. It’s dad-fare, set in 1995 when it also likely would’ve had mainstream success in popular culture. Continue Reading →
Blue Chips
While difficult, it is essential when reviewing a film to evaluate it within the context of the era. To choose a relatively inoffensive hypothetical, if a movie made before 1980 refers to bipolar disorder as “manic depression,” you shouldn’t ding it for the outdated terminology. After all, at that moment, that was the proper parlance. Still, it’s not easy, especially when our understanding of an issue has changed significantly in the years since. This reviewer, for instance, struggled mightily to judge William Friedkin’s 1994 directorial effort Blue Chips on its own era-specific merits. Continue Reading →
A Million Miles Away
A Million Miles Away is one of those movies that live in the meaty part of the decent curve. Far too sturdy and well-made to be called bad. Too rote and predictable to really call good. It tells the true story of José Hernández (Michael Pena), an unquestionably inspiring man who did an impossibly difficult thing under impossibly difficult circumstances. Continue Reading →
Bruised
The best sports movies uplift and invigorate. They often take their formulaic structures to greater heights than what seems achievable. They transcend the films that they’re modeled after, pushing forward different definitions of winners and losers. The classics, Rocky, Hoosiers, A League of Their Own, offer the catharsis that sports can bring; they unite an audience in rapturous applause, even if the underdog doesn’t win the title fight. Unfortunately, Halle Berry’s directorial debut, Bruised, neither elevates nor shifts this formula, resigned to a middling existence likely to get lost among the endless titles shuffling through Netflix. Continue Reading →
The Courier
Dominic Cooke's well-crafted spy thriller doesn't try anything new, but boasts winning performances & a zippy plot. In 2019, the buddy-car film Ford v Ferrari became the clear cut favorite of dads across American and Britain. Using well-matched leads in Christian Bale and Matt Damon, James Mangold’s film became a critical and commercial hit, showing that fathers still have the power to put a movie into the green. It looks like there’s a new dad film of 2020 though, with Dominic Cooke’s Ironbark taking its rightful spot upon the beer-bellied throne. Ironbark tells the story of Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), a British businessman recruited by the government to become a spy-like courier in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Wynne agrees to keep this entire operation a secret from everyone, including his wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley), growing more invested and involved and spy-ish. Flanked by one British operative Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and one American operative Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan), Wynne begins meeting with a Russian source named Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). Together, they smuggle nuclear information back into Britain and the U.S. in hopes of avoiding nuclear war, and eventually dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Continue Reading →