Woody Allen gives us fair warning: this period piece is a melodrama, a particular genre, he announces early on, that’s a force we must let flow as it demands. Apologetic as he is, Allen plunges into an area he doesn’t often go, a full on sweating tragedy. While the results are mixed, fans of the filmmaker will find this latest work worth a spin.
Beautiful. Yes, there’s more to Guillermo Del Toro’s otherworldly fantasy, but, for now, let’s just give a sigh of relief and enjoy the fact that this is, indeed, a work of beauty.
Are there real surprises here? No. This story, as we are told from the very beginning, is a fairy tale, and one that works out to not such a bad conclusion. But, as all good fairy tales do, it does take a while to get us to the happy place.
Maybe I could have appreciated Louis C.K.’s muddled mess at another time. But. A comedy about a Woody Allen-ish director, a brilliant auteur with a reputation for taking advantage of innocent young things? A movie in which Louis repeats words he has used to the real-life press, vaguely defending his own questionable reputation, reminding us not to give light to dark rumors, to things that happen behind closed doors?
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Martin McDonagh’s tragi-comedy turns out to be the most humane of movies: a non-sentimental but intimate look at people under the greatest of stresses but also a remarkable testament to the healing, or at least coping, powers of empathy.
The Movie Minute 