{"id":8327,"date":"2020-01-08T08:17:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T13:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8327"},"modified":"2020-01-21T09:06:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T14:06:20","slug":"movie-jam-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8327","title":{"rendered":"Movie Jam-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"popcorn\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In Hollywood\u2019s haste to release\nfilms under the wire for this year\u2019s Oscars, a number of excellent movies appeared\nduring the holiday season, and I haven\u2019t even seen them all yet. But I would\nrecommend these:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ford v Ferrari<\/strong> \u2013 One of the most exciting films I\u2019ve seen in a long time,\nand not a single spy in sight, other than the corporate kind (trailer<\/a>). And the\ntension held, even though I knew the ending. Yes, some of the corporate doings\nof Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) and his management team were fictionalized, but\nnot Ford\u2019s 1966 accomplishments on the LeMans race course. Wisely, Ford\nentrusted creation of his racing vehicles to legendary engineer Carroll Shelby\n(Matt Damon), who insisted on using his favorite driver, Ken Miles (Christian\nBale). Damon and Bale are perfection. Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>\ncritics rating 92%; audiences 98%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little Women<\/strong> \u2013 So much has been said about how writer\/director Greta\nGerwig draws new insights from this much-produced tale. Her framing of the\nstory of four sisters growing up in the mid-19th<\/sup> century works (trailer<\/a>), and in sister Jo\u2019s\n(Saoirse Ronan\u2019s) negotiations with her publisher (Tracy Letts again), the\nblending of Jo with author Louisa May Alcott is clear. Amy (Florence Pugh) receives\na more well-rounded treatment than usual. She has the best lines of the movie,\nsuggested by Meryl Streep, when she matter-of-factly explains to Laurie (Timoth\u00e9e\nChalamet) that marriage for a woman is not a question of love, but finances. Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>\ncritics rating 95%; audiences 92%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dark Waters<\/strong> \u2013 Tales of crusading lawyers and journalists (think Spotlight,\nThe Post<\/em>) are especially refreshing in these times, when idealism seems quaintly\noutmoded. The film is based on the true story of how a determined Cincinnati\nlawyer (Mark Ruffalo) takes on DuPont for covering up the damaging health\neffects of Teflon exposure (trailer<\/a>). He persists,\neven though the head of his law firm (Tim Robbins), which serves many corporate\nclients, is reluctant; his wife (Anne Hathaway) thinks he\u2019s unhinged; his kids\ngrow up; and the powerful company works for two decades to shut him down. Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>\ncritics rating 90%; audiences 95%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knives Out<\/strong> \u2013 It\u2019s very entertaining to see writer\/director Rian\nJohnson put this great cast\u2014among them, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni\nCollette, and Ana de Armas\u2014through its paces (trailer<\/a>). Wealthy family\npatriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), who made a fortune writing\nmystery stories (this is fiction, remember) is found dead of an apparent\nsuicide. But was it? Not only do his children stand to inherit, but they all\nhave additional motives to kill him. Or do they? Courtly Southern detective Benoit\nBlanc (Daniel Craig) arrives to sort lies from truth. Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics\nrating 97%; audiences 92%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Hollywood\u2019s haste to release films under the wire for this year\u2019s Oscars, a number of excellent movies appeared during the holiday season, and I haven\u2019t even seen them all yet. But I would recommend these: Ford v Ferrari \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Movie Jam-Up - four excellent late-2019 movies in case you need a brief escape from . . . whatever.\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[440,265,52,54,366,57,104],"tags":[1666,1679,1677],"class_list":["post-8327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","category-biography","category-crime","category-detective","category-drama","category-movies","category-the-morgue","tag-ford-v-ferrari","tag-knives-out","tag-little-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2aj","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/popcorn-576599_1280-e1571314279946.png?fit=350%2C410&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8328,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8327\/revisions\/8328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}