Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
Movie Corner: The Phantom of the Open
Comedy/Drama Sony Pictures Classics 2021 ★★★★☆ By HOWARD MCQUITTER II The opening film for the 2022 Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival starts with a chuckle, a laugh, and guffaws. I think it was a brilliant move for the Festival to open with a comedy/drama after these last few years of COVID 19 and unrest. Mark Rylance plays a real-life Maurice Flitcroft, a crane operator for Vickers shipyards, following in his father’s footsteps. He is married to his lovely wife Jean (Sally Hawkins) and has 3 sons: Michael (Jake Davies) and twins Gene (Christian Lees) and James (Jonas Lees). In the movie we get a peek of Gene and James as disco dancing champions. Maurice has no hobbies. Jean suggests he find one. One day he’s watching a golf tournament on TV and has the idea that he could play golf even though he never swung a golf club. Despite their misgivings, Maurice’s family encourages him to golf. He tries repeatedly to join elite golf clubs but [...]
The Crossing (Original title: La Traversée)
MAUR film 2021 ★★★★★ Movie Corner By HOWARD MCQUITTER Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival is back in person! A special gem of the festival is The Crossing. This animated film follows two children, Kyona (Emilie Lan Dürr) and Adriel (Maxime Gemin), siblings who return from playing in the forest to their village and witness an unspecified group of hooded soldiers who have come to massacre the Yelzid people. Immediately Kyona, Adriel, their parents and two younger siblings pack their belongings and flee. They manage to catch a train packed with others who have also fled the village. However, the ride on the train is thwarted by soldiers for Control detaining the family by force on the platform. Kyona and Adriel decide to proceed alone across the border, hoping for safety. But it is the opening scene that gives a blueprint for this colorful animation painted in oil paint on glass. Kyona has a sketchbook, a gift from her father which she [...]
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Warner Bros. Clint Eastwood in movie art for the film 'The Outlaw Josey Wales', 1976. (Photo by Warner Brothers/Getty Images) (1976) ★★★★★ By HOWARD MCQUITTER II The Outlaw Josey Wales is a superb western by Clint Eastwood with a great cast. Josey (Clint Eastwood) is a farmer in Missouri during the Civil War when Union soldiers, led by Terrill (Bill McKinney), murder his wife and child. Josey joins the Confederate Army in revenge for the murder of his family. After the war he refuses to surrender. And when most of his fellow soldiers give up their guns, they are massacred by the Union soldiers. He's able to escape from the Union soldiers (led by Terrill) and the bounty hunters on his trail. Fellow Confederate soldier, Fletcher (John Vernon), does his best to convince some lawmen that Josey has been killed in a shootout. Though, the gung-ho bounty hunters are not so easily convinced. Josey flees to Texas and along the way he picks up a wounded rebel soldier, [...]
