The Old Man & The Gun Is The Newest Exceptional Directorial Effort From David Lowery

This is the third straight year that director David Lowery has delivered a new film and they're all quite different creatures. 2016 saw him enter the world of family movie filmmaking with the excellent Pete's Dragon, in 2017 he did an avant-garde exploration of life & death with A Ghost Story and now in 2018 he's delivered The Old Man & The Gun, which covers some common thematic ground with A Ghost Story. Specifically, both are wistful tales of how our own lives can impact others even after we're gone, though his newest directorial effort covers this material in a more light-hearted dialogue-heavy manner compared to the stripped-down nature of A Ghost Story.

The Phenomenal A Ghost Story Is Hauntingly Ambitious And Beautiful

Let it be said right up front; A Ghost Story will not be for everyone. It's a blatantly unconventional borderline experimental movie with little in the way of actual dialogue and even less in the way of onscreen explanations for how various parts of its story function. I honestly can't believe it's playing at my local Cinemark a venue where I'm sure it'll be received with plenty of audiences going "What the hell was that?" once the lights go up. But for me personally, A Ghost Story almost feels like it was tailor made for me and my sensibilities, particularly my mind and the way it constantly obsesses over wistfulness for locations and memories of the past. I'm fascinated by those elements of yesteryear and how they impact me and those are the kind of ideas A Ghost Story, as a film, is fixated on too.

Gone Baby Gone Kicked Off Ben Affleck's Directorial Career In A Somber Fashion

Ben Affleck's career circa the mid-2000's was not in a happy place. A number of high-profile box office and critical duds like Gigli, Jersey Girl and Surviving Christmas had left his profile tainted and he would only appear on-screen in two movies (Hollywoodland and Smokin' Aces) in the five year period between 2004 and 2009. But in that time span, Affleck decided to reinvent himself as a director by adapting the first feature film screenplay he had penned since his breakthrough movie, Good Will Hunting. The movie he would make his feature film directorial debut on was Gone Baby Gone, a sobering drama that, to date, is his only directorial effort that he does not star in.

Manchester By The Sea Explores How Human Beings Can Go On Carrying Immense Sorrow

To carry pain in one's heart is to be human. Our own experiences in life begin and end with regret, no matter how fruitful or unsuccessful our lives turn out to be. It's always the unsatisfactory moments in our own lives that preoccupy our minds. One's sleeping patterns can easily be disrupted by contemplating the simple ways a person could have substantially improved their own life. We've all got our own emotional baggage stemming from the past to work out, and so, Manchester By The Sea, feels very much an emotionally universal project, one that is fully pivoted upon this thematically rich concept. What follows is quite excellent in the way it deftly handles some tricky subject matter without coming across as exploitative or manipulative. It honestly, above all else, feels true.

The Finest Hours Review

Chris Pine has struggled to really take off as an A-list leading man now that Star Trek has made him at least a well-known, though admittedly not quite a household name, kinda guy. I've always liked the dude, and even in otherwise crappy movies (like Horrible Bosses 2) he usually still gives it 100% percent. But there's no denying that some of his post-Star Trek efforts haven't quite taken off, with the likes of This Means Wars, Rise Of The Guardians and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit being non-starters at the box office. On the positive side of things though, he had the best moment, far and away, of Into The Woods and his 2010 effort  Unstoppable with Denzel Washington was a rip-roaring fun thriller.

Interstellar Review

Flawed In Space

Space is a glorious vessel for cinematic storytelling, whether it's Luke Skywalker's many voyages into the cosmos or Stanley Kubrick using space as a backdrop for a look at humanity. So many stories, of widely varying degrees of quality, have been told within those far off stars, so it was inevitable for Christopher Nolan to send his own sci-fi tale into orbit.