Reel Encounters

There’s something paradoxical about a 21st century film musical and even more so about “The Greatest Showman,” which is not the best or worst representation of what musicals are in 2017.

“All the Money in the World,” the recent Ridley Scott drama, is perhaps the darkest film I’ve seen from 2017.

I went into “Molly’s Game” knowing much nothing about it beyond the fact that it was written by directed by Aaron Sorkin, in his directorial debut, and that it starred Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba.

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” bills itself as a standalone sequel, a descriptor that seems immediately counterintuitive though it is immediately intrinsic to 21st century blockbusters.

“Patti Cake$,” a 2017 film about an overweight white woman’s quest to become a rap star in the slums of New Jersey has garnered immediate comparisons to “Hustle & Flow” and “8 Mile”.

Last week’s column on “A Ghost Story” had me thinking about representations of loneliness on screen.

Who invented the bedsheet ghost? The image of a ghost marked by donning a white sheet with holes for eyes is a classic and familiar concept.

“Mudbound” is a film that will be sold on its relevance.

“Beach Rats,” the winner of the best director award at this year’s Sundance film festival, is a filmic bildungsroman.

I made the potentially problematic decision, to screen Sidney Lumet’s 1974 adaptation of “Murder on the Orient Express” a few days after watching the recent 2017 Kenneth Branagh directed version.

Terence Davies has never met an opportunity for a tableau vivant he did not like.

“The Past” opens at an airport. We watch a reunion between two people.

“The Mountain Between Us” is a film that ends up just where you expect it to.

I have often had the argument with myself, and with others, about what should be expected from purported film “genres.”

There’s a scene in Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” that I use very often when discussing art and our relationship with it.

At the end of the month, there will be a television anniversary that may not be significant to many.

Earlier this month when Donald Glover won the Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series (his second that night), he quipped, “I want to thank Trump for making black people number one on the most oppressed list.

“Who drew the dicks?” This is the narrative hook on which Netflix’s new mockumentary comedy “American Vandal” rests.

Visual-media of the eighties seems to have a stranglehold on coming-of-age pre-teen films, don’t they?

The romantic comedy “The Big Sick” did not open in cinemas in Guyana, which seemed particularly odd.