Female Film Critics 24/375
Matt Reeves’ The Batman is a brooding, noir’ish interpretation of the DC Comics superhero, focusing for almost three hours on a sorrowful, conflicted Dark Knight, haunted by serious psychological issues involving his late father. Working with cinematographer Greig Fraser and production designer James Chinlund, director/writer Matt Reeves bathes the film in a bleak, inky blackness, enhanced by Michael Giacchino’s symphonic score.
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The Batman is set 20 years after the murder of young Bruce Wayne’s parents. It’s Halloween and Gotham’s “on the take” political leaders are being killed by the sadistic Riddler…forcing Batman to scrutinize the city’s corruption and the Wayne family’s possible involvement. The Batman is a throwback private eye film and a psychological thriller. It’s more True Detective and less Super Hero.
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Fans of writer/director Christopher Nolan are not strangers to bent time, trippy constructs in physics, or highbrow filmmaking. Unfortunately, all that wizardry can’t make up for the lack of character development and mental gymnastics required to buy into and stick with the story of Tenet.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning South African author J.M. Coetzee has adapted his 1980 novel – a cautionary tale about the sins of colonialism – into a mediocre movie. Making his English language debut, Colombian director Ciro Guerra and cinematographer Chris Menges filmed in Morocco and Italy, lending an evocative cinematic authenticity to the bleakly generic drama about brutality by authorities.
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The Lighthouse isolates two men with dire consequences.
With a haunting foghorn sounding at regular intervals and ominous music signaling dire prospects, a lighthouse slowly emerges from an all-but-impenetrable fog. Two men arrive for a four-week commitment on an island buffeted by storms, their stay defined by the steady psychological deterioration resulting from claustrophobic isolation. The Lighthouse is an intense immersion in the world of two unstable individuals.
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Opening Feb. 27, AWFJ’s Movie of the Week is Maps to the Stars, director David Cronenberg’s descent into the dark heart of the film industry. Mia Wasikowska takes the role of Agatha, a new arrival in Hollywood, who finds herself working as a personal assistant to the unhinged actress Havana (Julianne Moore), who is haunted by the ghost of her dead mother and never far away from a complete breakdown. Read on…
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