Annette Bening

The Grifters

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  • Title: The Grifters
  • IMDb: link

Stephen Frears‘ 1990 neo-noir crime thriller centered around three grifters in the City of Angels comes to the Criterion Collection on 4K and Blu-ray. One could make a strong case The Grifters, now 35 years-old, remains the director’s best film. Trust may be hard for the characters to find in the script, given the shadowy world of half-truths and lies, but the talent is evident in every frame of this stylish look at con artists getting in over their heads.

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Nyad

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  • Title: Nyad
  • IMDb: link

Nyad

Based on true events, Nyad offers the attempts of retired long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) who in her 60s became obsessed with completing the swim from Havana to Florida which she failed to accomplish in her 20s. While in many ways your typical sports drama featuring an athlete overcoming impossible odds, and driven (and haunted) by personal experience, the film’s story is elevated by the performances of Benning and by Jodie Foster who plays Diana’s best friend and coach throughout her multiple attempts to make history.

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Death on the Nile

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  • Title: Death on the Nile (2022)
  • IMDb: link

Writer/director/star Kenneth Branagh returns to reprise his role as Hercule Poirot in this follow-up to 2017’s adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. The adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile isn’t as successful, in part due to source material not being as strong this time around and in part for some questionable creative decisions.

It takes far too long to get to the setting for our murder mystery, let alone the murder itself. By the time the body has dropped more than half the film seems to have already passed. In a somewhat defiant attempt to justify the character’s look in the previous film, Branagh opens with a flashback explaining the reasoning behind Poirot’s ridiculous mustache. After jumping forward, we are given multiple scenes setting up various characters, both in London and in Egypt, before finally get them all together on a ship sailing down the Nile River.

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The Report

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  • Title: The Report
  • IMDb: link

The ReportThe Report is one of a number of movies released in 2019, most of them based on true stories, centered around an idealistic protagonist uncovering a dark truth and struggling to bring it to light. Our hero is Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver) who is chosen by Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) to lead an investigation into the CIA’s detention program, and the enhanced interrogation techniques they deployed, following the attacks on September 11, 2001. What he discovers is shocking and disgusting, as is the CIA’s work to discredit the report and make sure the truth never sees the light of day.

The events depicted in the film are less shocking today then when they were disclosed, but writer/director Scott Z. Burns does fashion this version of Jones as the vessel for the outrage over what was done in the name of freedom as well as a singular source to document and describe many of the flaws with the CIA’s methods that, after all was said and done, produced very little in actionable intelligence. While Jones is obviously Burns’ hero, Senator Feinstein is a bit harder for him to nail down (especially given her late waffling against the opposition to the report).

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Marvel’s Carol Danvers

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  • Title: Captain Marvel
  • IMDb: link

Marvel's Carol Danvers movie reviewAfter dabbling in movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok, Marvel goes all-in on more hardcore sci-fi with their latest film offering a sort-of alien protagonist in a rebellious Kree warrior who arrives on Earth searching for a scientist before the alien-shape-shifting Skrulls can get their hands on her. Complicating matters for Vers (Brie Larson) are her fractured memories of Earth, only recently returned from her interrogation with the Skrulls, which will not only lead her on a search for a missing scientist but also a discovery into who she is.

It may have taken Marvel a decade and DC to greenlight two movies (Wonder Woman and its sequel) before going into production with a lead female protagonist, but the writing and directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck deliver a solid super-hero film that fits somewhere in the lower-upper-half of the MCU. Larson easily carries the film that brings in some fan favorite supporting characters that help liven up the proceedings after a somewhat clunky opening act that spends a lengthy amount of time explaining the Kree, the Skrulls, the war between the two alien races, and Verse’s role with the Kree.

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