Shameless Self Expression

Frances McDormand plays Fern, who suffers a double tragedy; 1) Her husband dies, and 2) The small Nevada town she lives in essentially closes down due to the foreclosure of the all-important local gypsum plant. Fern decides to pack up and head for the open road with her van as her new home. When running into the daughter of a friend she insists she’s not homeless but ‘houseless’. Along the way Fern gets seasonal work at Amazon and a few things here and there at campsites and the like. She also makes new acquaintances with other ‘nomads’ like her, mostly temporary connections. David Strathairn plays one such acquaintance, and some real-life ‘nomads’ play a version of themselves.   The winner of the Best Picture Academy Award, this 2020 film from writer-director Chloe Zhao (who also won Best Director) is a great vehicle for Frances McDormand, who deservingly won Best Actress. Given that many of the people McDormand interacts with aren’t professional actors, you might think it’s a giv

Tye Sheridan plays the title hotel clerk who suffers from an extreme case of Asperger’s Syndrome. He also has secret surveillance cameras so he can watch people and learn/mimic their behaviour. He says it’s to help him learn how to communicate better with others. He lives with his well-meaning but enabling mother (Helen Hunt) and spends most of his non-work time in the basement watching the camera feeds. Sheridan goes home after his shift one night and notices a hotel guest being attacked by an unidentified male. He rushes back to the hotel only to find the woman dead. An investigating cop (John Leguizamo) finds Sheridan immediately suspicious, and finds it difficult to get straight answers out of him. Ana de Armas plays a sweet hotel guest who is experienced with people with Asperger’s, and whom Sheridan develops a fondness for. Jonathon Schaech plays the husband of the dead woman.   Wanna see an oddball blend of “Rain Man” and a sexless “Sliver” ? Yeah, me neither. Writer-direct

Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has survived the events at The Overlook, but grown into an alcoholic wreck who tries to suppress his ‘Shining’ ability. He’s given a leg up by recovering alcoholic Billy (Cliff Curtis) and given a place to stay while they attend AA meetings. Finding a job as an orderly at a hospice, he finds himself an affinity for calming the nearly-departed, becoming ‘Doctor Sleep’. Out of the blue, Danny starts to receive psychic communications from a young child named Abra (Kyliegh Curran). Abra has become aware of a group of demonic psychics called The True Knot, and their gleefully evil leader Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson). Unfortunately, The True Knot become aware of Abra too, and it’s now up to Danny to muster up the courage to once again use his gift to protect her from these sociopathic, otherworldly soul-suckers. Carl Lumbly turns up in flashbacks as Danny’s old ‘shining’ pal Halloran.   I don’t envy the task writer-director Mike Flanagan (the underrated

An aging man of moderate nobility converses with his son-in-law about his life and loves in the hopes of setting the young man’s mind at ease about his own female troubles. We see this in flashbacks as Laurence Harvey recounts his dalliances with various members of the fairer sex. He regales both son-in-law and audience with tales from his beginnings as quite the philandering cad (hello, Eva Gabor as an unhappily married woman, and Diane Cilento as an early feminist) to forming more substantial relationships with women (the latter includes painter Julie Harris and nurse Mai Zetterling). Christopher Lee plays an offended French diplomat who catches Harvey with his betrothed Eva Gabor.   A not especially interesting 1957 British romantic comedy/drama, with an unlikeable Laurence Harvey being only half the problem here. He’s well -cast for what the first half of the film requires of him, but far too caddish to sell the character’s transition in the second half. Laurence Harvey and sym

Creepy film detailing the series of murders in California from the late 1960s, and the seemingly never-ending, emotionally exhausting, dedicated manhunt. Our chief protagonist is San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), who becomes obsessed by the case (the Zodiac himself appears to be communicating with Chronicle staff through coded messages), perhaps to the extent of endangering his life and those of his family. Chloe Sevigny is the stereotypical worried wife, one half expects her to walk in on Gyllenhaal creating a giant mashed potato dome in the dining room. Graysmith hooks up with dishevelled star crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr., playing it like a typical Robert Downey Jr. character). The other important figure in all this is Inspector Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), who also served as the model for “Dirty Harry” and “Bullitt” , the former of which had a villain called ‘The Zodiac Killer’. John Getz and (a very bored-looking) Dermot Mul