As summer transitions to autumn we are typically see increasingly better movies.
Below are 10 September film reviews, rated on a scale from 0 (“The Dreaded Fist of Badness”) up to the “high 5.” High-fivers are outstanding films you do not want to miss. Films rated two or below are not worth paying to see, a three-rating is professional entertainment, and four fingers are excellent movies most will thoroughly enjoy. September is a good but not great month for film, although four in particular are well worth seeing. Two I thought were disappointing “skip its.”
As always, feel free to let me know if I’ve got them right or wrong. Opinions are the best thing about talking movies: When it comes to sharing opinions and reviews, everyone’s idea of good or bad is dead, solid perfect.
Here we go:
The Light Between Oceans – 3 fingers. Derek Cianfrance’s third feature, a chick flick tear-jerker about a young married couple operating a remote lighthouse a century ago in rural Australia, is too long, choppily edited, and fails to maximize a strong troika of excellent actors (Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Weisz).
Sully – 4 fingers. It is always a directorial challenge to tell a story that will entertain an audience who already knows the story, but Clint Eastwood’s astute decision-making and Tom Hanks’ outstanding performance deliver a well-made biopic about a veteran pilot’s emergency landing of a bird-stricken jet into New York’s Hudson river.
Pete’s Dragon – 4 fingers. This wonderful Disney remake about a young boy alone in the wilderness with his pet dragon is everything family entertainment should be and, thanks to solid performances by Robert Redford and Bryce Dallas Howard, should be a popular mainstream viewing choice for several years to come.
Bridget Jones’s Baby – 3 fingers. Fans of the travails of the unglamorous British single girl—who finds herself suddenly pregnant at 42 with two possible fathers—will enjoy this third installment, thanks largely to strong work by Colin Firth and a strong supporting injection of humor by co-writer Emma Thompson.
The People vs. Fritz Bauer – 4 fingers. This solid German drama about one German Jew’s post World War II determination to track down and bring to justice one of the major organizers of the Holocaust—Adolf Eichmann—is tight, well made, and effectively layers several interesting character complexities.
Wild Oats – 2 fingers. British comedian Billy Connolly steals the film from co-stars Shirley MacLaine and Jessica Lange in this spotty buddy picture about a matron who receives a life insurance check for far more than her late husband’s coverage and takes her best gal pal to the Canary Islands to live it up on holiday.
The Age of Shadows – 4 fingers. This dramatic suspense thriller about a 1920s Korean resistance faction defiantly pushing back against Japanese occupation is a bit long but really well made, lots of fun, beautifully shot, and spearheaded by a terrific performance by Song Kang-ho as a Korean who is working for the Japanese as a police detective but gets snared in a loyalty conflict between his homeland and job.
Author: The JT LeRoy Story – 3 fingers. Long before computers made the world a haven for instant hype came JT LeRoy, a fictitious street urchin teen boy who became a literary sensation but way too famous thanks to the overweight 35-year-old San Francisco woman who made him up during talks with her therapist and perpetuated the con with help from her cross-dressing sister-in-law.
The Magnificent Seven – 2 fingers. This cowboy remake about a group of bloodthirsty misfits who sign up for small town revenge suffers from just about everything: a weak script, a miscast ensemble, bad direction, and a very uneven score.
Snowden – 3 fingers. Director Oliver Stone sprinkles a lot of creative directing techniques throughout this sympathetic biographical expose of the computer whiz who blew the whistle on the NSA’s clandestine monitoring of American citizens’ computer and cell phone activity, for which he was vilified and forced to live in exile in Russia.
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you in October!