jackkyser has written 65 reviews for films during 2021.
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Pieces of a Woman 2020
Vanessa Kirby and Ellen Burstyn are wonderful in this film. I’m intrigued by movies with a major first act event/ set piece (for instance, Robert Zemeckis’s Flight) that then deal with the emotional fallout for the remainder of the run-time. Plus, I always get a strange thrill from a delayed opening title card (this one doesn’t pop up until 30 minutes into the film).
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News of the World 2020
Paul Greengrass’s News of the World is exactly the kind of distinguished Hollywood film audiences normally flock to on Christmas Day. Even as most studios have pushed their year-end prestige pictures back to 2021, Universal Pictures has admirably given theaters a gorgeously cinematic attraction, starring none other than America’s preeminent leading man, Tom Hanks. Here, Hanks re-teams with his Captain Phillips director Greengrass for an adaptation of Paulette Jiles’s novel.
Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Hanks) is a Civil War veteran…
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One Night in Miami... 2020
Regina King’s directorial debut is impeccable. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown are brought to vivid life by Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Leslie Odom Jr. and Aldis Hodge. One Night in Miami... is truly absorbing, intelligently written, and packs in more soul-stirring moments than any other film this year.
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Sound of Metal 2019
Sound of Metal is such a wonderful film about, among other things, the difficulty of sitting alone in a room and having to live with your racing thoughts. It’s also a deeply moving recovery film, in which our protagonist has to learn to live with what he can’t rise above. Paul Raci, as the head of a rehab for the hearing-impaired community, gives a beautiful speech about the power of stillness. Riz Ahmed’s Ruben looks for a way to overcome…