Director Brian Helgeland’s “Finestkind” would be a great movie if he and the screenwriter ever decided what kind of movie they’re actually intending to make. “Finestkind” has a lot going for it, but it’s hobbled by its terrible tonal shifts. It’s about four movies anxious to burst out and rise to the surface. For a whole hour it’s a drama about the beauty of sailing, then it’s a crime thriller, then it’s a neo-noir about a botched drug bust, then it becomes a tragic familial drama. It never focuses on one theme, thus it comes off feeling so confused and disorienting.
Tag Archives: Drama
Still (short) (2023)
Mercy Road (2023)
The Portrait (2023)
Following an accident that left the husband damaged, a couple goes to a lavish home to regroup and heal. Once there, a portrait mysteriously looking like the husband haunts them.
Oppenheimer (2023) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray]
Say what you want about Christopher Nolan, but his sense of theatrics and spectacle works wonders in exploring the calculated creation of the Atomic bomb, as well as the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Arguably one of the most destructive figures in world history, “Oppenheimer” is simultaneously a biopic of Oppenheimer as well as a deep dive in to the development, and politics of the atomic bomb and how it changed the world drastically.
The Day of the Locust (1975) [Arrow Video Release]
In this satire of 1930s Hollywood, an art director moves into an apartment building where most people are in the industry or want to be. Soon, he falls for a troubled woman who’s involved with a few people with their own issues. Through this, he wants to make her a star.
Blackberry (2023)
For the life of me, I’ll never be able to figure out the glut of product biographies being unleashed on audiences. We can’t be so bereft of material that we have to have a biographical film about the development of a hand held computer. I mean, the Blackberry was important and granted, a documentary would be great, but “Blackberry” on its own is just another stale drama that tries to enhance the mundanity of the development of Blackberry and transform it in to this “Wall Street” meets Aaron Sorkin suspense film about capitalism and the cut throat industries that battled to get ahead in the tech market.