I don’t think films like this come along every year let alone every two or three years. This just blew me away. A combination of excellent artistic choices and a story that is profound and universal make for a movie I want to see again straight off.
Set in the projects of Miami, Little is a black kid whose mum is a drug addict (tremendously fearsome work by Naomie Harris)
. He gets bullied by the other kids and labelled as a faggot before he himself knows his own sexuality. A drug dealer, Juan, rescues him and allows him to stay over at his place sometimes. Juan is no good role model but the responsibility brings out his paternal instincts and his girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe)
is a rock for Little’s life. Mahershala Ali plays Juan and although he is only in one third of this triptych of a film, his presence remains throughout.
Next we see Little as Chiron in the war zone of the local secondary school bullied and beaten again.
This cruel reality is true for so many kids it becomes so clear how many broken adults we have. Chiron in astrology is the planet of deep wounds, things that you may carry for various lives and which need to be cured for transformation to take place. Chiron starts to inch towards a fuller life when he has an intimate moment with Kevin
, his only real friend at school but later he is betrayed.
Finally, Chiron is seen years later as Black. He has bulked up, learned to survive and is dealing drugs in Atlanta. His mother is now in a sort of institution, working and surviving but the drugs have ravaged her.
Kevin, (André Holland)
has had issues of his own and is now a cook in a Miami neighbourhood café. He rings Black (Trevante Rhodes)
and they meet up to bring the story full circle.
This is a movie of the kindness of strangers and the brutality of family and friends. It is a film where words often fall way short of being able to express inner feelings. It is about survival on the streets and the curing power of water and so much more. Beautifully understated with an eclectic soundtrack, great photography with some unusual choices of shots. Barry Jenkins has made a masterpiece in my opinion and puts white orientated, gay scared Hollywood in its place, this year at least.
★★★★★+
Although handled with a comic feel, the discrimination and resistance is criminal and even the delay in learning this story shows how far the US has to go in equal rights. A great chance for three talents such as Taraji P. Henson, as the mathematician,
Katherine Gobel, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan as the computer programmer
and Janelle Monáe as the engineer to show what they can do.
Kevin Costner does a good job as the NASA head 
and Kirsten Dunst gets the dirty work to do as the human resources head. Mahershala Ali does a nice job as Katherine’s love interest. A nice bit of historical nostalgia with some political correct revisionism but I did get tired of seeing Katherine sprinting to the coloured loo half a mile away. An important film to remind us of life for blacks then 
and also to see how Henson and Spencer can command an audience’s attention.
Director Mike Mills is telling the story of his life, a previous film, Beginners, being about his father. When Dorothea decides she heeds help with her son she opens her house to Abbie, a young feminist, an ex-hippie handyman (Billy Crudup) and Jamie’s best friend Julie (Elle Fanning)
, a neighbour with a kookie mother. They are supposed to help him with his education. But as they do so, involving him in different events, Dorothea feels estranged and old and seeks to reclaim her son. There are many humorous moments in this movie,
much valid recreation of the period as punk reigns, Carter is about to sink like a stone and be replaced by Reagan and the values of Dorothea’s generation are about to be relegated by others. Bening is superb in the lead role
and deserves far more nominations than she has so far received. Greta Gerwig as Abbie surprises in her restraint and adds another great effort to her CV.
Lucas Jade Zumann is the canvas on which people paint themselves or reflect off but does a decent job as Jamie. A film about mother-son relationships and a film about a boy brought up under the influence of strong women but surviving to tell the tale. Nice.
and photography (Linus Sandgren). The story of a Hollywood love affair 
and the conflict between chasing career opportunities and real love is somewhat cliché, but lends itself perfectly to the format and the fantasies around Tinseltown. You have to suspend disbelief quite a bit. So, we have a fair bit of reality blended with sudden bursts into song and a yearning for the old days which people says this film captures as a mood of the times. 
Emma Stone does very well as Mia, perhaps not actress of the year but she holds the movie together and Ryan Gosling in a less attractive role gives some support.
I was not blown away by this. With the less than top singing and dancing little transported me though there were some good scenes.
But it felt very much that magic was being contrived here and perhaps partly because the director did seem to want to keep us coming back down to Earth. An interesting film with a few lapses in tempo.
All very San Fran heydays. They head off to Halifax for Bennett’s work and Michael starts to have panic attacks and dreams of dying.
We have quite a period of soul searching and Michael finds his way back to the bible, goes to bible school and ends up being a pastor in a complete volte face from what he has been preaching before. He claims not to identify with being a gay and that it was a straying from the path.
This causes some dismay among former lovers, friends and colleagues.
In many ways it is a convincing journey as I know of people who have experienced the same but there are still many questions left unattended and the view of some of the religious side that homosexuality is immaturity just doesn’t wash. I think the split between mental and physical sensations and analysis perhaps needed more time as Glatze is portrayed as being the intellectual in terms of sexuality. So, throws open the doors for an interesting debate, good in parts but perhaps a little too docudrama to really enthuse us.
Underpinning the quality of this work is that it is based on three Alice Munro stories and it tells a tale of parents and children who are estranged, especially mothers and daughters. With the time frames changing throughout the film (as in the stories), Almodovar brings us lonely middle-aged Julieta, whose husband dies and whose only daughter goes off for a spiritual retreat at 18 and is not heard of again, choosing to leave her old life behind.
Her story and search for Antia is full of poignant moments and curses that many families have and the director frames these very well.
Emma Suarez is totally convincing as the mature Julieta and Adriana Ugarte 
does a good job as her younger self. Great to see Rossy De Palma cast against type.
This is a relatively small film in scope but is very competently made as you would expect from a director of this calibre.
serves in Okinawa and saves dozens of lives in a battle on the afore-named Hacksaw Ridge against the Japanese.
Andrew Garfield is the centre of this movie as Desmond Doss
, an almost gormless but super principled country boy. His portrayal is quite remarkable and full of depth. Hugo Weaving also shines as his alcoholic father and there are good turns by Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths
and Sam Worthington among others.
Compared to the Clint Eastwood film set in the same war, this is a bit one-sided but Mel knows how to put on a good military battle and by the end, we feel that we have been there and witnessed Doss perform this miraculous deed.
More exciting than Deepwater Horizon, the director Craig Gillespie hits the mark with his focus on three theatres of action: the tanker engine room, the launch and onland.
It is not the greatest script ever and there is far too much emphasis on the romance between wooden Bernie (Pine is not that convincing)
and his pushy girlfriend played by Holliday Grainger.
But the action scenes at sea are a treat 
and really add excitement to the tale. Affleck does a good job as the rebel leader of the tanker crew 
and nice to see Eric Bana is back as the local Coast Guard chief. Carter Burwell has composed some great music though it is rather overused here. Good photography from Javier Aguirresarobe. All told, an entertaining film of its genre, particularly when at sea.
A film about overcoming adversity. This case is quite an extreme one about Phiona, an illiterate girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda who becomes a national chess champion 
and helps pull her family out of the mire. Nice heart warming story though Mira Nair’s direction gets kudos more for filming in a country not renowned for film or for resources rather than for artistic talent. She gets on and tells it like it is. As you would expect there are some attractive child actors 
and in the role of Phiona, Madina Nakwanga is a find. Her mother is played by Lupita N’yong’o tackling a part of someone perhaps a little older than her in real life.
She is dominant in her scenes. David Oyelowo 
brings his stage talent to the role of the school teacher mentor. Nice to see scenes of Uganda.
in the marriage of two old friends.
But as the time passes it seems that other couples have problems and issues to and their desire to intervene and provoke the divorce of their friends was precipitous given their own issues.
This film of Clea DuVall is distinctly minor but has some good acting on the female side from Cobie Smulders
and Melanie Lynskey 
and is reasonably authentic.
passionfilm 