Retired movie nut living in Chattanooga, Tennessee with a wonderful wife, Kristen and pomchi baby, Sharma
Author: JONATHAN MOYA
“Happy As Lazzaro”: A Magical Realist Fairy Tale Lost In a Neorealist Folk Story
Critics love Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy As Lazzaro because it’s a magic realist tale enshrouded in neo-realist garb, a wolf in sheep’s clothing of symbolism and allegory. I have no patience for movies or symbols that refuse to define themselves or …
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“The Front Runner” Suffers the Side Effects of Gary Hart’s Monkey Business
In The Front Runner Hugh Jackman portraying the scandal ridden Presidential candidate Gary Hart passes two boats named Side Effect and Monkey Business. It’s an obvious statement of theme. The Front Runner shows the side effects of Gary Hart’s monkey …
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“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”: The Coen Brothers Revisit and Enhance the Western
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (on Netflix) is a sextette of Coen brothers Western vignettes that is a great representation of both their weird and serious side. The near assimilation of other Western directors styles is fused into something that …
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“Ideal Home”: Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd Do a Family Three Way
In Ideal Home the comic rifts that Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd are able to create on their gay characters and their relationship is probably what attracted them to the project. Their bickering has a zing and wit that feels …
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“Private Life”: A Great IVF Dramedy
Private Life, (on Netflix) director Tamara Jenkins first film in twelve years, is an angst filled dramedy about trying to conceive. The grind of unsuccessful IVF treatments, futile search for egg donors and deflective comments to adoption counselors feels lived …
“Dumplin’”: A Beauty Pageant Comedy With a Dolly Parton Heart and Song Track
Dumplin’ (a Netflix movie) folds a whole lot of Dolly Parton songs (six new, and six classic) and witticisms into its rebellious BBW daughter (Danielle Macdonald from Patti Cake$) versus former beauty pageant queen mom (Jennifer Aniston) plot. It is …
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“Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle” Getting Beyond the Disney Version to a True Kipling Sense
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (on Netflix) realism and violence makes it a truer version of the Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book stories than the sanitized Disney versions. Though not quite Darwinian, The Law of the Jungle does rule here …
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