dwyer
Bio: High-school teacher in Honolulu.
Recent Ratings
Check out dwyer's...
| 79 T7 | Borg vs. McEnroe (2017) - Apr 15, 2020
"Thank goodness for the film’s ending, which heals some of my wounds. Where the tennis action fails, the closing scene succeeds, showing us the action and giving us a resolution the competition denies us. Very, very well done. As a film lover, I think it’s excellent. As a sports film lover, I think it’s pretty good. As a sports lover, I think it’s agonizing. For this, I have to penalize the film one point for unsportsmanlike behavior."
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| 73 T5 | The Lighthouse (2019) - Apr 11, 2020
"The acting is fabulous, but excellent performances by both actors highlight one of The Lighthouse’s major obstacles. When great actors overact in service to the movie, we have to work out a certain tension. When skilled writing goes over the top, we have to decide whether or not to accept it. Accepting them both makes it easier to accept the other strange sights and developments; my advice is to appreciate everyone’s considerable chops. There’s almost no way the film satisfies if you"
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| 77 T6 | A Star Is Born (2018) - Oct 28, 2018
"The first half is better than any half of any of its predecessors. Cooper and Gaga are a joy, crackling with chemistry and sincerity. Cooper adopts a Kristofferson-like look and sound, while Gaga is all kinds of humility and sweetness Streisand couldn’t approach (and possibly only Gaynor equaled). In their early scenes, absent the veneer of a pop show with all its choreography and costumes, we have an actress perhaps less skilled than her opposite but making up for it with utter vulnerability."
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| 67 T3 | A Star Is Born (1976) - Oct 22, 2018
"There are a time and place for candlelit bathtub lovemaking scenes, although what they are I can’t tell you. Esther’s fights with John also get tiresome and too long. They love each other but it’s a damaged relationship. We get it. It’s pretty harsh to blame a 1970s film for being too 1970s, but I blame the 1954 film for being too 1950s, and the enduring films of any era should be called out for their excesses. It’s a fine movie with some definite highlights and a few too many self-in"
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| 61 T2 | A Star Is Born (1954) - Oct 22, 2018
"A three-hour marathon that’s alternately engaging and sloggy. Everything we love about younger Judy Garland is right here, as if the film were written about her, and everything some of us (me) hate about 1950s movie musicals and their showtunes is right here as well, in overwrought, boring excess. Take out most of the songs, and the film would be a pleasant length, but the filmmakers are determined to make it a comeback for Garland, who’d been out of movies for four years."
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| 75 T6 | A Star Is Born (1937) - Oct 19, 2018
"A Star is Born looks and feels like the popular movies of its time, but with a smart, strong woman taking the lead. Norman is no tragic hero—he’s not a hero at all—but he’s a man loved by a woman. Could his demise have been reversed by a woman like this, or by anyone? The film seems to think not, and as Norman travels along his beautiful, downward spiral, Esther goes along with him because someone has to try."
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| 92 T10 | Eighth Grade (2018) - Oct 12, 2018
"Because most of us were eighth-graders millions of years ago, we’re like Kayla’s dad. We see what a bright, interesting, resilient young woman Kayla is. Unlike Kayla, we also see that the young people around her, the popular kids throwing pool parties at their huge homes and the nerdy cousins and the handsome (barely pubescent) jocks all have their own growing pains. Which makes Eighth Grade one of the realest looking movies about pre-high-school I’ve ever seen."
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| 90 T10 | Puzzle (2018) - Oct 11, 2018
"I saw Puzzle five days after seeing Juliet, Naked, and they are nice complements. Both feature middle-aged women questioning their choices, wondering if it’s not too late for a do-over on some of them. I like both, but I like Puzzle quite a bit more. Whether it’s because of its puzzles theme, because it’s considerably more anguished, or because it leaves a bit more to the viewer to interpret doesn’t really matter to me; it’s probably all three."
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| 61 T2 | The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) - Oct 11, 2018
"Are Audrey and Morgan looking at their former selves, these vapid and giggly twenty-somethings, kind of disgusted with what they see but experienced enough to manipulate it? Or are they looking at the idea of young women in movies, nearly completely useless in a genre almost always dominated by men? There’s something here, but my brain was too bored by the third act to try and put it all together."
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| 27 T1 | Pitcher and the Pin-Up (2003) - Oct 05, 2018
"The story isn’t just loaded with cliché; it’s an uninterrupted string of clichés from beginning to end. I recently declared The Room the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but at least The Room is packed with stuff you’ve never seen before. I’d much rather watch The Room again. You might have to pay me to spend another evening with The Pitcher and the Pin-Up."
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