Month: October 2023

‘Anatomy of a Fall’: Huller rises and delivers the best lead actress performance of the year so far

Jeff Mitchell

“Anatomy of a Fall” (2023) – “I need you to be precise.  Tell me everything.” – Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud) Director/co-writer Justine Triet’s courtroom drama, “Anatomy of a Fall”, feels precise in just about every moment.  However, a barrage of facts, figures, explanations, clarifications, and evidence – throughout a 152-minute runtime – cause knotty twists and turns in this absorbing legal rollercoaster, one that rides and rolls through mountains of intimate stress and anxiety in the French Alps. Very early in the first act, Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis) falls to…

‘Butcher’s Crossing’ doesn’t quite make the cut

Jeff Mitchell

“Butcher’s Crossing” (2022) – Where would you take your dream vacation?  Maui?  Walt Disney World?  Los Angeles?  Paris?  London?  Tokyo?  The Bahamas?  In 2023, a family of four might choose one of those destinations, but in director/co-writer Gabe Polsky’s western, the year is 1874, and 20-something Harvard student Will Andrews (Fred Hechinger) wants to experience life. So, he packs his bags, leaves Boston, and heads out west to the tiny municipality of Butcher’s Crossing, Kansas, where the harsh saloon whiskey might be the gentlest creature comfort in town.  Its merchants…

Let ‘The Burial’ rise towards the top of your movie queue

Jeff Mitchell

“The Burial” (2023) – It’s October!  For movie fans of all ages, ‘tis the season for forbidding films that thrill and chill, loaded with frightening frights and screeching scares! Enter director/co-writer Maggie Betts’ “The Burial”.  Imagine the late, great movie-trailer legend Don LaFontaine introducing this new Halloween-month release. “Arriving this October, Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones rise in the terrifying after-midnight graveyard gorefest, ‘The Burial’.” Well, despite the ominous title, Betts’ (“Novitiate” (2017)) movie isn’t horror-based at all.  Not at all.   It’s a courtroom drama, and it doesn’t…