6 Best Movies To Watch After Empire of the Sun (1987)
Love at First Sight
As an avid consumer of romance—be it in book, film, or television format—you learn to level expectations when a beloved story is adapted. That’s particularly the case amongst the recent spate of mid-to-low budget adaptations across the gamut of streaming services. Usually, the best-case scenario is they’re mildly enjoyable but ultimately forgettable. For example, there’s Prime Video’s recent adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue. More often than not, they’re absolutely dreadful. The less said about Netflix’s take on Austen’s Persuasion, the better. What is true, though, is that they’re very seldom genuinely good. Continue Reading →
A Million Miles Away
A Million Miles Away is one of those movies that live in the meaty part of the decent curve. Far too sturdy and well-made to be called bad. Too rote and predictable to really call good. It tells the true story of José Hernández (Michael Pena), an unquestionably inspiring man who did an impossibly difficult thing under impossibly difficult circumstances. Continue Reading →
Falcon Lake
In Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman, we see a young girl meet another in the woods. Soon we learn the latter girl happens to be a literal younger manifestation of the former’s mother. In Charlotte Le Bon’s debut film, Falcon Lake, a pre-pubescent boy falls in love for the first time with the daughter of a family friend in a campsite supposedly haunted by a ghost. Continue Reading →
Bird Box Barcelona
Okay, fine, Bird Box Barcelona isn’t exactly a sequel. It’s more of a continuation, as Netflix gets a belated start on making a franchise out of 2018’s Bird Box, a perfectly fine but unremarkable film that inexplicably became a smash hit. Smash or not, five years is a long time, so you might need a refresher course. Much of Earth’s population has been decimated by malevolent beings with visages so emotionally overwhelming that anyone who looks at them immediately commits suicide, and the survivors are forced to navigate what’s left of the world with their eyes covered, lest they see whatever “they” are. That’s really all you need to remember. Continue Reading →
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Even after the umpteenth re-watch, I feel I’m only starting to scratch the surface of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. Initial reviews and reactions gravitated towards the film’s relationship with Scientology and its co-founder L. Ron Hubbard. In the decade since, this fixation has dissipated, depriving confused viewers of an easy handhold while scaling this towering cinematic achievement. Make no mistake: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd is a character clearly inspired by Hubbard. But labeling The Master “a movie about Scientology” is about as silly as thinking you can cure leukemia by accessing past lives. Continue Reading →
The Last Letter from Your Lover
While author Jojo Moyes doesn’t confine herself to the romance genre, her works do share a rosy bloom. Light-heartedness and melodrama and historical settings and yes, love, all abound. So without even reading it, you’ll probably have some idea of what to expect from the newest adaptation of her work, The Last Letter from Your Lover. There’s the French Riviera and 1960s fashion and mystery and a torrid love affair—the works. And director Augustine Frizzell doesn’t seem too interested in taking this tale off the tracks.In short? It’s your classic Netflix weepie, though perhaps a little more star-studded than usual. Felicity Jones (Rogue One) stars as Ellie, a modern London reporter with a bad case of heartbreak and a crappy attitude. While researching a basic assignment, she stumbles upon an old love letter that’s so intoxicating she becomes determined to track down who it belongs to and what happened to the couple in question. In between scenes of Ellie’s search, we see the romance play out. Jennifer (Shailene Woodley, Big Little Lies) is a 1960s housewife with a husband who doesn’t seem to know or care that she exists. So when she meets dashing reporter Anthony (Callum Turner), it isn’t long before the two become swept up in each other and fall madly in love. But you won’t know if their romance ends in tragedy or happily ever after until Ellie gets to the bottom of it. Continue Reading →