Note: If you have not yet seen “The Brutalist,” this video discusses the ending from about the mid-point onwards. Here, Alabama Liberal explains how “Anora” continues the recent trend of Best Picture winners that are forgotten a few months after you watch them (and blames rank choice voting for it) whereas “The Brutalist” is a…
Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer
ALL 2023 Movies Reviewed, Graded, and Ranked From Worst to Best
Since Alabama Liberal’s inception, I’ve been doing this annual countdown. This year’s countdown is not only the most belated (sorry) and longest (nearly 300 movies reviewed in one article is partly why it took so long), but also possibly the best year for movies since I started. It is extremely rare to have a handful…
All 2022 Movies Reviewed, Graded, and Ranked From Worst to Best
Note: More than ever, it would be truly impossible to watch all the movies that came out in a modern calendar year. I’ve seen well over two hundred 2022 movies, but there were still a dozen major ones I would’ve loved to have seen before finalizing this countdown–although, frankly, I doubt it would’ve made much…
ALL 2021 Movies Ranked and Graded
Quick Note: Better late than never, Alabama Liberal was so far behind on his annual movies countdown that I wasn’t able to post it on New Year’s Day (a tradition) but nearly a month later. My apologies, but I think you’ll agree that 2021 was a pretty good year for movies, and hopefully find several…
Long-Title Reviews: “…Buster Scruggs,” “Bad Times at…” “Nutcracker and…” “A Star…” “Old Man and the Gun” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Is it just me, or are film titles getting longer? I guess with so many new films being released, they need a way to stand out… The Ballad of Buster Scruggs…The Coen Brothers are back with their Old Testament approach to narrative: creating fascinating characters only so they can torture them for the high-crime of…
Quick Reviews: “Fahrenheit 11/9,” “House with a Clock in Its Walls,” “You Were Never There,” “Endless,” “RBG,” “Angel,” “Revenge,” “Rider,” “Resistance Banker,” “Venom”
Fahrenheit 11/9…Michael Moore’s confused agitprop wasn’t half the film “Fahrenheit 911” was–either critically or commercially, and it’s because Moore isn’t really making a film about Trump. Long sections of this film seem like Moore actually set out to make a documentary about the Flint Michigan water crisis (an environmental scandal that could also be considered a slow-moving…
Quick Reviews: “Sisters Brothers,” “Simple Plan,” “Predator,” “Nun,” “Peppermint,” “White Boy Rick” “Jurassic World 2” “Uncle Drew” “Damascus Cover” “Gemini”
The Sisters Brothers…A twisty Western that keeps going in directions you wouldn’t expect. For some, that may be a bit disappointing at first, but this is a film that grows the more I think about it. I found myself slightly underwhelmed while watching it, but enjoying it more fondly days and even weeks later. For…
“Eighth Grade,” “Juliet Naked,” “Searching,” “Mission Impossible 6,” “Sorry to Bother You,” “Blindspotting,” “Kin,” “Mile 22,” “3 Identical Strangers,” “Christopher Robin”
Some more new movies to talk about, most of which are actually good… Eighth Grade…One of the absolute best films of 2018. Hilarious, moving, and so realistic (in a way few “slice of life” indies truly are) some scenes are hard to watch since it could easily be a documentary. Elsie Fisher deserves a Best…
TON of Reviews: “Operation Finale,” “The Meg,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Happytime Murders,” “Mamma Mia 2,” “Teen Titans,” “Alpha,” “Equalizer 2,” “Darkest Minds,” “McQueen”
So many reviews, so little interest…Why not combine about 10 August movies into one super-review? The Meg…A film designed to make “The Shallows” or “47 Meters Down” look like masterpieces. I actually enjoy a good shark movie during the Summertime (both of the aforementioned got positive reviews from this critic), but “The Meg” isn’t even…
TON of Movie Reviews–“Cargo,” “Generation Wealth,” “Dog Days,” “Black Klansman,” “Ant Man 2,” “Puzzle,” “Spy Who Dumped Me” “Tau,” “Papillion,” “The Wife”
A bunch of random movie reviews that have nothing in common except I watched them all recently. Hey, I’ve got to post two months worth of movie reviews in a day, so things might get a little condensed… Cargo…An atypically low-key, emotional zombie film in which Martin Freeman (recently bitten) has to find someone to…
Movie Reviews: “7 Days in Entebbe,” “Set it Up,” “Truth or Dare,” “Peter Rabbit,” “Midnight Sun,” “Love, Simon,” “Pacific Rim 2,” “I Can Only Imagine,” “Extinction,” “Sherlock Gnomes”
Sometimes a movie (or 8) falls through the cracks, here now to pick it up… 7 Days in Entebbe…Home viewing is probably ideal for this smart hostage drama about Israel’s real-life attempt to rescue a plane that had been seized (by Palestinians and two German leftist-radicals who are a little too oblivious to their own…
Movie Review: “Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado” is Worthy of Your 4th of July Dollars
Another winner from screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (writer of not only the first “Sicario” but the best film of 2016 “Hell or High Water,” and writer-director of last year’s great “Wind River”) who at this point seems to do no wrong. While critics have been surprisingly harsh on this worthy sequel, fans will likely enjoy it–and…
Movie Review: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” aka the Mr. Rogers Documentary
“The Mr. Rogers Documentary” might’ve been a better–albeit more artless–title for this stirring, roundly-acclaimed film since that’s pretty much how I have to describe it to people. [Just try telling people you’ve seen “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and after a few seconds of taking in their confusion, you’ll see the awareness flood onto their…