Noirvember / Contrarian Corner: Motherless Brooklyn

By Lynn Lee

Is Motherless Brooklyn just another high-profile Oscar hopeful turned dud-on-arrival?  The early signs for Ed Norton’s long-gestating passion project have not been encouraging, to put it mildly.  Reviews on both the festival circuit and the film’s general release and here at TFE have been tepid, the box office even more so. Its awards prospects are pretty much nil.  It’s also not the kind of movie that’s likely to find success through word of mouth or build a long-term cult following, and its chances of future critical reevaluation are uncertain at best.

All of which makes me a little sad, because I quite enjoyed the film, and think Norton deserves more credit than he’s getting for what he’s accomplished...

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Review: The Good Liar

by Scott Thomson

Two Grand High thesps of the most esteemed order playing against each other in a cunning game of deceit. A surefire winning recipe, right? Maybe not.

Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren are most certainly having a gay old time together, practically purring in each calculated exchange with one another. It is not often enough that we get to see the screen shared by a pair of Britain’s most beloved (capital ‘A’) Actors but this is far from enough to lift The Good Liar from the escalating preposterousness that clouds the fun within. It reads like an “oh my God what if we did this thing...” kind of idea conjured by a drunken playwright after too many Merlots round Sir Ian’s pub on a Saturday evening. The result is a film perhaps best enjoyed in a similar state... 

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Review: Last Christmas

by Chris Feil

A sure signal of the coming holiday season at the movies is the arrival of unpretentious lighter fare like Last Christmas. This year’s offering falls in line with the easy charms of such previous entries as The Holiday and Almost Christmas, but also arrives with a somewhat affably strange lump of ingredients. Inspired by the Wham! song and packed with a slew of George Michael songs, the Paul Feig-directed film is co-written by Emma Thompson (with Bryony Kimmings and Greg Wise) and offers up timely context within a classic romcom structure. It’s a sugar high of a movie that remains grounded in some substance, not exactly tidy but satisfyingly more than meets the eye.

Emilia Clarke plays the disillusioned would-be singer and Yugoslavian immigrant Kate, couch-hopping between friends that she quickly burns out with carelessness and working in a Christmas-themed giftshop. She avoids her family, particularly her domineering mother (also played by Thompson), and is increasingly testing the patience of her demanding but doting boss (Michelle Yeoh). Kate’s self-destructiveness comes after a serious illness has left her not with renewed gratitude, but with a diminished sense of self she has internalized into constant misbehavior. But her main challenger in the struggle comes when a charming man on a bike named Tom (Henry Golding) wanders in and out of her life.

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Review: Motherless Brooklyn

by Michael Frank

Edward Norton has accomplished many things. His first major film role in Primal Fear landed him an Oscar nomination. He’s acted in over 40 movies since, earning himself two more Oscar noms, a Golden Globe, an Emmy nomination, and dozens of awards around the globe. His accomplishments speak for themselves. Norton’s new film though, Motherless Brooklyn, won’t add much to that list, though, as he whiffs on a huge swing... 

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Review: The Current War (Director's Cut)

by Tony Ruggio

After more than a year of pre-release hell at the scissorhands of Harvey Weinstein and his terrible deeds, The Current War has finally seen the light of day. Tackling the industrial war over electricity between famed inventor Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and business magnate George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), it’s a good story well told. Well, after a rough first half, anyway. The epic narrative is rushed and contracted in the early going, before evening out and focusing more on character in the final stretch.

The breakneck pacing actually does the film a disservice, as we barely get to spend time with Edison, Westinghouse, or their creations before director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon barrels forward to the next moment in history. Classical themes of greed, power, and loss are threaded like any other biopic of powerful men, but the greatest subtext lays therein, where the two men differed so greatly...

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