Movie of the Week: ‘The Square’

“The Square” (2017) – Do you enjoy modern art?   Modern art can offer fascinating trips into extraordinary visions, kooky madness, fashionable imagery turned on its head, and much more.  Walk into a modern art museum, and one might find neon orange cubes that turn purple and then back to their original color every 30 seconds or so.  In another room, one could spot repeated portraits of Sophia Loren layered with newspaper and paraded on the walls, and the adjacent corridor may house an oil painting splashed by one thousand hues…

‘The Last Letter from Your Lover’ looks gorgeous, but we’ve ‘read’ this story before

“The Last Letter from Your Lover” (2021) –  Director Augustine Frizzell’s film – based on Jojo Moyes’ 2008 novel with the same name – is an old-fashioned romance.  Well, half of it is.  “The Last Letter from Your Lover” is rooted in present-day London, but it flashes back 56 years to 1965 to the same city, when men sported suits and ties to step out of their houses to run random 10-minute errands, and women strived to look like Jackie Kennedy or Marlo Thomas.  Perhaps not Ms. Thomas, because “That…

‘Joe Bell’: The messages ring, but the narrative structure does not

“Joe Bell” (2021) – “I’ve decided to walk across America.” – Joe Bell (Mark Wahlberg) In director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “Joe Bell”, Joe – a working-class family man – drops his responsibilities at home and embarks on a trek from La Grande, Ore. to New York City.  Jadin (Reid Miller), his eldest son, joins his dad, and this two-person reverse Lewis & Clark journey feels entirely apropos.  Joe delivers an anti-bullying message to anyone who will listen, in response to Jadin receiving repeated torments because of his sexual orientation, both…