hmgoldner Reviews

Tár (2022)

Great overacting by Blanchett

[3/10 · 2 April 2023]

1. Absolutely no reason to put all the credits in front. Had zero significance in the film.

2. Excessively tedious.

3. Really hard to follow where things were talking place.

SPOILER ALERT

3. There are surely many more male sexual predators than lesbian ones. Why make that the only plot point, then?

4. Oozes pretentiousness and wastes perfectly good Mahler. Multilingual subtitles added nothing to the story such as it was.

5. The ridiculously long scene at Juliard was rambling, incoherent at times, contradictory at others, and barely advanced the plot. It's s lot easier than that to show that your main character is a jerk (and it doesn't require 2 hours and 38 minutes to do it.)

I feel like everyone raved about this film because they wanted others to think they were smart enough to get all the trivial references. The emporer isn't wearing any clothes. This just wasn't that good of a film.

The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)

Excellent concept poorly executed.

[6/10 · 7 June 2019]

I could watch Maggie Gyllenhaal read the phone book (and sometimes this movie was so slow I felt like I was). The conceit and the flat with this movie is that the child was too young. It was completely unbelievable to the extent that you wanted to smack someone.

Make the child 10 and capable of real dialogue and you have an interesting movie.

This isn't that movie.

The Favourite (2018)

A film that can't make up its mind.

[6/10 · 24 December 2018]

Despite stellar performances by the three lead actresses, this film doesn't seem to be able to decide whether it is a comedy, drama, satire, or relationship piece, and fails at trying to be all four.

One other minor criticism, as one who assiduously pours over the credits, especially for certain production and music details, the credit graphics were absolutely the worst ever, and impossible to read. I can't believe the production company wasn't cited for violating contractual crediting obligations.

Mother! (2017)

Quite possibly the worst ever, certainly the most pretentious

[1/10 · 29 September 2018]

At last a movie worse than "Comfort of Strangers," with a cast of actors I adore (as with "Comfort.") If you like Jennifer Lawrence so much you think you could watch her watch paint dry, you're in luck. Otherwise, it's two hours of your life you'll never get back.