Category: 2020s

I do wonder how well someone who has never seen an episode of The Sopranos would follow this movie. As a fan of the television series, this prequel offered quite a bit for me. The film offers the rise and fall of Dickie Moltisanti, setting him up for better and much worse as the mentor of Tony Soprano. Set during the 1967 Newark riots, there’s quite a bit of retconning done to pull in as many references as possible to the original series. This is also done with a number of the characters from the series, shoehorning caricatures of well-known characters into roles that could have better been filled by different personalities. The narration of a ghostly Christopher Moltisanti is rather unnecessary and overly explains things that are already being shown. There were many bright spots, mostly in roles where the actors didn’t try to overly copy their predecessors (Vera Farmiga as Livia, William Ludwig and Michael Gandolfini as young Tonys, Corey Stoll as Junior) but I think it all could have been best served as a limited series. 

In an economically depressed area of Southern Ohio, Jessica Barden has recently been accepted into the college of her choice but most engage in more and more dangerous endeavors in hopes to pay for her future schooling. I was interested in this film because I’ve spent a lot of time in the area where it was set and filmed. That setting is presented well; the film evocatively captures the dark, cold, never-endingness of Midwestern winters. Unfortunately the camera work as a whole was rather distracting, not even bother with annoying shaky cam but graduating to full on swinging back and forth mode. The cast overall worked quite well and felt like believable people from the community, except for the main character. She came off as pouty and privileged instead of tough and resourceful. Though many actors pull it off, I’m not surprised she isn’t American.

In this fictionalized account of events that occurred in medieval France, knight Matt Damon challenges his former friend Adam Driver to a judicial duel after his wife Jodie Comer accuses Driver of raping her. The film is unnecessarily told in 3 versions, giving very slight differences in the perspectives of the three main characters, a feat that could have been accomplished easily with a more linear translation. This overextends the runtime to the film’s detriment. It detracts from some rather fine acting and period costumes and set pieces. The only weakness in the acting is Ben Affleck as the count overseeing all the proceedings. While he provides some comic relief, his bleach blonde, dude-bro portrayal is a bit over the top and quite silly.