Lorenzo Sisti/Elevation Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Ferrari (2023)
Somehow Michael Mann has made a biopic of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) that nonironically hits many of the biopic tropes parodied in “Walk Hard” – a parent bitter the wrong kid died, an unhappy marriage, the main enemy of the subject’s success being the subject himself. But in “Ferrari” none of this is funny; and the way in which the movie ends, which is broadly true to life, is so disturbing it’s almost impossible to fathom. Proponents of the philosophies of Ayn Rand are going to love this, which is not really a compliment. We know things will work out for Enzo because the movie exists, as does the Ferrari organization, but it’s unusually disturbing to realize that its story is about how a man achieved his success as the expense of many, many lives.
Continue reading “The Prancing Horse Unbridled” »
Kristen Correll
MOVIE REVIEW
The Fallout (2021)
Revolving around the aftermath of a school shooting, “The Fallout” feels at once remote, thanks to Covid-19-mandated distance learning during the 2020 school year, yet urgent, due to mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colo., in early 2021.
Continue reading “Survival of the Unfittest” »
James Bridges/20th Century Fox
MOVIE REVIEW
The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
At first glance, “The Fault in Our Stars” promises to give a tried-and-true daytime soap trope — star-crossed romance afflicted with terminal illness — the Y.A. novel treatment. One can almost picture a weepie making an auditorium full of Directioners tear up as if on cue. It’s difficult to fault someone uninitiated for making that assumption; yet at the same time, that would be underestimating the film.
Continue reading “Die Another Day” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Descendants (2011)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
“The Descendants” is at a serious disadvantage when held up against other films by Alexander Payne. But that’s only because Jim Taylor’s whip-smart dialogue is noticeably absent this time (although he is still onboard as a producer). Once you get past the screenplay’s higgledy-piggledy treatment of Kaui Hart Hemmings’s source novel, the film ultimately proves another success for Mr. Payne. To wit, he convincingly pulls off the central conceit that a woman in her right mind would actually cheat on George Clooney with Matthew Lillard, which is no small feat if you really think about it.
Continue reading “Pupukahi I Holomua” »