Review Roundup: Star Wars XI, Cats, 1917, Little Women, Uncut Gems & more

December 25, 2019 Announcements, News

Not sure which film to pick among the fray out in theaters or on streaming right now? Allow the members of the Houston Film Critics Society to assist you with their reviews below:

Star Wars XI: The Rise of Skywalker

Jason Escamilla (EskimoTV) — “Spectacularly handles characters, delivers on epic action, and concludes a saga that has spanned decades.”

Dustin Chase (Texas Art & Film) — “‘Skywalker’ is expensive, general, family entertainment; galaxies away from original and inspiring.”

Cary Darling (Houston Chronicle) — “And don’t shed too many tears. Disney is going to make sure that the echoes of your goodbyes will barely have had time to fade by the time of the rollout of the next “Star Wars” story arc.”

Donna Copeland (Dr. Donna’s Film Reviews) — “Whether or not it’s true that this is the last installment of the Star Wars franchise, it is well worth seeing.”

Kevin Ranson (MovieCrypt.com) — “… giving Carrie Fisher top billing, the big Skywalker finale isn’t the best film of the series but does manage closure of every current character arc, topping it off with a perfect coda…”

Cats

Kevin Ranson (MovieCrypt.com) — ” More is less, but sure — let’s go all in… looking like a remake of The Wizard of Oz as a 1980s interpretive-dance video on MTV where all the characters have been replaced by human-feline hybrids…

Dustin Chase (Texas Art & Film) — “Cats is a head-on collision between movie musicals and incompetent technology in which there are no survivors, only miles of morbid curiosity and rubbernecking.”

Donna Copeland (Dr. Donna’s Film Reviews) — “Lovers of cats, musicals, and modern dance are likely to be the best audience for the movie Cats.”

James Roberts (Glide Magazine) — “There are much better and more interesting ways to ruin Christmas.”

Little Women

James Roberts (Glide Magazine) — “Even if it struggles to define itself against the near countless number of adaptations that have come out over the last century, Gerwig does a fine job at bringing new resonance to the story.”

Mark Schumann (The Ridgefield Press) — “By choosing to depart from how the story has been told, however, she undermines her choices to tell a new story.”

Donna Copeland (Dr. Donna’s Movie Reviews) — “Interesting and entertaining as it is, it makes me question remakes in general.”

Dustin Chase (Texas Art & Film) — “Gerwig hones her skills as a filmmaker on Little Women modernizing it ever so slightly for a new generation, never losing sight of Alcott’s vision.”

Kevin Ranson (MovieCrypt.com) — “… celebrating young women dealing with life, circumstance, and personal decisions from their own point of view, Gerwig’s new adaptation may be the best version of Alcott’s novels as the most relatable take.”

1917

Donna Copeland (Dr. Donna’s Film Reviews) — “Heroics are paramount in 1917, but the visual and musical enhancements and the brief, tender moments, altogether, earn it a place on the “must see” list.”

Dustin Chase (Texas Art & Film) — “Mendes and Deakins have engineered an astonishing war film that’s equally as thrilling visually as it is narratively.”

James Roberts (Glide Magazine) — “All around us we see the evils of war and, yet, throughout that, our heroes serve as beacons to remind us not only of the reasons we fight but also of the heights we can reach if we put aside our baser impulses.”

Kevin Ranson (MovieCrypt.com) — “… the theater was how this was meant to be seen: no stopping, no respite, and no escape… a two-hour no-cutaway immersion into war.”

Bombshell

Dustin Chase (Texas Art & Film) — “It’s Lithgow who steals the show. His performance as Ailes is Jabba the Hut meets Churchill in corporate America and it makes him a real supporting actor possibility.”

James Roberts (Glide Magazine) — “Unfortunately, the toothless direction of Jay Roach makes a film which punches far softer than it could have and leads to a somewhat forgettable cinematic experience.”
Kevin Ranson (MovieCrypt.com) — “… keeping silent to keep your spoils rather than sound the alarm to protect others as a central theme… the ripped-from-the-headlines motif is timely but not as compelling as it wants to be.”

Donna Copeland (Dr. Donna’s Film Reviews)  — “If you want to see beautiful women in effective, provocative roles, this is a movie to see.”

Uncut Gems

Donna Copeland (Dr. Donna’s Film Reviews) — “…appeals to the taste of a few, but is sorely lacking in any substantive meaning.”

Dustin Chase (Texas Art & Film) — “The Safdie Brothers have meticulously created one of the year’s most intentionally irritating films.”

James Roberts (Glide Magazine) — “In a year beset by claims of films that recall early Scorsese, only Uncut Gems stands tall next to the master’s.”

Kevin Ranson (MovieCrypt.com) — “… an endurance test foreshadowing the final five minutes of the film; while observant viewers won’t be too surprised by the plot, they might be by the performance.”

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