MoviesMillers

The Lord Of The Rings/The Two Towers - Movie Review Critics Score - 10 of 10 General Audience Score - 10 of 10 After the release of The Lord Of The Rings The Fellowship Of The Ring, while the film went on to immediate financial success and critical acclaim, New Line cinema knew they had two more gold mines left of their hands. Dropping into theatres one year later, Dec. 18, 2022, LOTR The Two Towers rolled in and scored almost a billion dollars at the worldwide box office and was nominated for six academy awards of which it won two. Although the film suffers slightly from Peter Jackson’s screenplay being adjusted in several ways from the original book, there can be no mistaking that The Two Towers was an undeniable accomplishment in the history of cinema. Personally, I would rank the trilogy in the order of Fellowship #1, King #2 and then Towers #3, but these are all masterpieces of film, each one in their own right. Whether you loved the books or not, whether your an average moviegoer...

Emily - Movie Review Critics Score - 9 of 10 General Audience Score - 7 of 10 Charlotte Brontë is a writer who lived in the 1800’s and wrote some pieces of classic English literature, including Jane Eyre. But her younger sister Emily, who lived a much shorter life and tragically passed at the tender age of 30, burned bright like a shooting star. Emily Brontë was a reclusive yet fascinating character that wrote the literary classic Wuthering Heights, but who’s life remains shrouded in mystery. The new movie Emily is a fictionalized account of what her life could have been and seeks to fill in some blanks of the events surrounding her creation of her masterpiece of writing. While it is very much a period piece and so we get to enjoy many of the dresses, stereotypes and emotional beats of a Pride And Prejudice or Sense And Sensibility, it works to subvert many of the classic storytelling tropes of the genre. Without spoiling the movie, I will say that not all great stories have the sail o...

Tár - Movie Review Critics Score - 6 of 10 General Audience Score - 4 of 10 If you were to try and name the greatest actresses currently working in Hollywood, you’d undoubtedly go through names like Meryl Streep, Olivia Coleman, Viola Davis and Frances McDormand. Actresses that no matter what they’re in really, they elevate even the simplest and most mundane roles into something really special. Among those names would certainly be Cate Blanchett. This year she brings us a film called Tár, a story of a woman orchestra conductor/composer who’s work begins to suffer at she hits some road bumps in her life. Tár as a film boils down to being one massive construct for Blanchett to showcase her talents, which are exceptional, and showcase them she does, she’s unbelievable. As a film critic, someone who judges other people’s art, I have to use the word pretentious through gritted teeth. But this is one of the most pretentious films I’ve encountered this year, she looks down upon the general au...

The Banshees Of Inisherin - Movie Review Critics Score - 8 of 10 General Audience Score - 7 of 10 Although I’ve never been to Ireland, I hear it’s a beautiful country, it certainly looks gorgeous from what I’ve seen and I’d love to visit someday. The country has a colorful history of turmoil and war scarring some parts of the nation when it claimed independence from Great Britain back in the 1920’s. A new film from Martin McDonagh called The Banshees Of Inisherin takes place in Ireland during that decade. McDonagh teams back up with Colin Ferrell and Brendan Gleeson for his latest story of two men that were friends and drinking buddies but their relationship takes a turn for the worse. Despite the film’s regular use of humor, it straddles the line of light and darkness, with some quite gruesome events and a somber tone, especially leading up to the finale. Although I had high expectations for Banshees, the film didn’t quite coalesce into one of the year’s best films as I’d hoped and ex...

Triangle Of Sadness - Movie Review Critics Score - 9 of 10 General Audience Score - 8 of 10 Most average moviegoers aren’t familiar with the name Ruben Östlund. He’s a writer and director from Sweden that’s made a few foreign films because technically they’re produced and filmed in Europe, even though his latest film, Triangle Of Sadness, is almost completely in spoken English. This film premiered earlier this year at Cannes, one of the more prestigious film festivals from France that took place in May, where Ruben took home the top prize, the Palme d’Or. With just that pedigree, Triangle Of Sadness has been on many film pundit’s radars for quite some time, but now it’s finally been released here in the U.S. It’s currently able to be seen in theatres, which is the best place to watch it, in a movie theatre with a group of friends. I won’t get deep into the plot, but the film is about a group of extremely wealthy individuals who go on a pleasure cruise aboard a luxury yacht when things ...

Women Talking - Movie Review Critics Score - 9 of 10 General Audience Score - 8 of 10 Women Talking is a book about a group of Mennonite women living in Bolivia who have a discussion about some unspeakable acts committed by the men in their colony. Despite their unspeakable nature, these women speak about them, I won’t mention them explicitly for the sake of spoilers. For anyone that doesn’t know, the Mennonite religion is a group, similar to the Amish, for the purposes of the general reader, they are people who typically live off the land, very simply and peacefully, in a tight knit group. But anytime a group of men, priests, leaders, elders, call them what you will, flesh and blood human men, put themselves in the place of God and the things say and direct others to do have to be followed as if they’re coming from an almighty source, well, that’s the recipe for a cult. In the film adaptation of Women Talking, a small group of women find a hayloft and discuss what to do about the men ...

The Inspection - Movie Review Critics Score - 7 of 10 General Audience Score - 7 of 10 Everyone loves an inspirational war story, the beaten down soldier or battalion left for dead that manages to pull off a victory against seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s a bit of a generic premise and has many common tropes that movies and shows can fall into, but who doesn’t love a good underdog story? Especially when the story is based on real people or events. Coming into theatres just before thanksgiving this year is the new film The Inspection, starring Jeremy Pope who plays a young, gay man who decides to join the Marine Corps. The film is based on the true story of the writer/director Elegance Bratton and his journey of change, self-discovery, defying the odds and taking charge of one’s lot in life. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t bring us any unconventional storytelling and it may have an ending you can see coming a mile away. But at just over an hour and a half, it does a good job at keep...

She Said - Movie Review Critics Score - 7 of 10 General Audience Score - 8 of 10 I feel like before I begin this review I must make a few things clear. Harvey Weinstein is a scumbag who deserves to be locked up and the key thrown into the ocean, along with any other men that use their power to prey on others. But my feelings on that type of men is completely separate from my efforts as a film critic to dissect a movie and critique it on how it works as a piece of art and entertainment. With that disclaimer aside, in just a couple weeks the new film She Said will drop into theatres, a movie about the journalists that helped to break open the case and reported the accusations against Harvey Weinstein that eventually and thankfully got him thrown in jail. While the lead performances from Kazan and Mulligan that play the journalists are perfectly serviceable, the movie just isn’t quite as good, especially when compared to other recent movies like Spotlight or Collective. Of course not only...

Corsage - Movie Review Critics Score - 7 General Audience Score - 6 The royal family, patriarchy and monarchy of various countries has been the source of great fascination and obsession for countless generations. Since the invention of film and TV, this medium has provided a vehicle for countless stories of kings and queens from every corner of the globe and their myriads of exploits. This year we get a foreign language film in spoken German, as well as several others, called Corsage, which will be the Austrian submission to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film. It covers some months in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, played by the delightful Vicky Krieps, and is very much in the same vein as the myriad of other films and TV shows like The Crown and Elizabeth. While the film is enjoyable and interesting, it is also a bit long and the events in the life of the Empress are really not much different from the host of other shows you can cue up at a moment. Plenty of the...

Close - Movie Review Critics Score - 9 General Audience Score - 8 When it comes to films in a foreign language, there are so many excellent ones each year, it’s really a shame the Academy Awards only chooses five for nominations of Best International Feature. There are incredible films from artists and filmmakers the world over, of those there are only a handful that even get their films submitted for awards consideration. But this year Belgium is submitting Close for Best International Film, a movie about two young boys of around twelve years old that are, well, just about as close as platonic friends can be. I will stay as vague as possible in this review to avoid spoilers. With that being said, this film is unbelievably sad, I cried at least four different times during the hour and a forty-five minute run, more than any film I’ve seen in years. I will put in a warning that this film may be triggering for some people, especially parents, so if you’re easily shaken I’d suggest reading...