In “Darkest hour,” what Gary Oldman’s Churchill has to contend with in a time of war reminded me of what a newspaper editor does: tense negotiations, the reworking of sentences, an overarching need to get the message out, loudly and clearly. The real context of the story, the history, is, evidently, a very different one from this. In the early forties European countries were falling like dominoes ... more >
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Gary Oldman is awesome in “Darkest Hour”

ANNA KARENINA
Keira Knightley and filmmaker Joe Wright ("Atonement") team up again to cover a celebrated work of European literature, this time focusing on forbidden love among the Russian aristocracy described by Tolstoy. The latter has directed a gorgeous-looking, if overindulgent, film, although nary a soul is to be found in it. Knightley, as the title character, wallows in her loveless marriage to ... more >
The soloist
“The Soloist” is the true-life story of LA Times reporter Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) who discovers and helps a schizophrenic and former Julliard cellist (Jamie Foxx) living on the streets of the City of Angels. The film, directed by Joe Wright (“Atonement”), features a lead character tormented by multiple voices in his head. Likewise, we can hear the multiple voices going on in the film’s ... more >

Atonement
Film critics are a notoriously grumpy lot, maybe because, unlike the general public, they sometimes have to see films they wouldn’t choose to. Thus, jaded and difficult to please, a number of them have called Atonement a Merchant-Ivory type production—albeit with more soul—made with an eye on Academy awards. Where some have praised it, others have found it as flawed as all screen adaptations of ... more >