Film critic for Salt Lake City Weekly since 2000.
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllRecent reviews
More-
The Power of the Dog 2021
Writer/director Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1968 novel keeps unfolding layers of loneliness, until the cumulative effect feels tragic in a completely unexpected way. In 1925 Montana, brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Burbank (Jesse Plemons) are running a cattle ranch in relative isolation, until George marries widowed Rose Gordon (Kirsten Dunst), whose arrival—along with that of her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee)—changes everything. The wide open spaces of the setting lend themselves to some evocative compositions for cinematographer Ari…
-
Julia 2021
Following in the tracks of their previous documentaries about trailblazing women, RBG and My Name is Pauli Murray, co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West offer up a profile of groundbreaking cookbook author and TV chef Julia Child that’s consistently engaging, even if it feels somewhat less than revelatory. The narrative here is pretty much cradle to grave, starting with Julia’s birth into privilege in 1910s California, her unique path choosing military service over the pre-assigned path of upper-class wife, her…
Popular reviews
More-
The Lion King 2019
What if this Lion King had come first? It’s an interesting thought experiment, sort of a second-cousin to the idea that drives the current theatrical feature Yesterday: What if we woke up in a world where Disney had never released a hand-drawn animated film called The Lion King in 1994, and this story were appearing now for the first time, in the age of photorealistic CGI recreations of real-world animals? If there’s anything wrong with it—and by extension, with Disney’s…
-
Phineas and Ferb: The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension 2011
How was it not insanely over-talked-about that Marvel's The Avengers had pretty much the identical climax as a Disney Channel movie?
