Review: "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

Fingers crossed this does not spur the wrath of franchise fanboys - I am not much a fan of Star Wars. I respect The Empire Strikes Back and get a real kick out of Return of the Jedi (largely on account of Jabba the Hut and those irresistible Ewoks) but A New Hope mostly bores me and I felt Episodes I, II and III often teetered on the hideously awful. I was entertained by last year's The Force Awakens but trust me, there was no urgency felt to revisit it anytime soon.

So, as you might imagine, I was not terribly pumped about the latest picture to sport the Star Wars name. There is, however, some good news to report - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is not a complete miss, on the level of The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. It is still, I'm afraid, not an especially great film.

Rogue One opens with scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) being plucked away from his peaceful home life by the malicious Orson Kreenic (Ben Mendelsohn) to work for the Empire. Years down the road, he is the lead engineer for that notorious, seemingly unstoppable weapon, the Death Star. Galen's daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones), who fled the scene when Orson took her father, teams up with a Rebel spy (Diego Luna) and other members of the resistance to take on Orson and hopefully destroy the Death Star. There are, of course, plenty of bumps, explosions, one-liners and half-baked action sequences along the way.

Despite an accomplished cast and screenplay by the usually reliable Tony Gilroy and Chris Weitz, Rogue One never quite takes off. It's not a bad film but rather one that just kind of sits there, as you wait for something fabulously exciting to happen (it never does). Jones, who was superb two years ago in The Theory of Everything, has a nice screen presence here but isn't given a whole lot to do. Even less meat is on the bone for her talented co-stars to devour. Only Mendelsohn really shines, as the film's one truly compelling character.

Michael Giacchino's original score is no John Williams but also not half-bad. Visually, the picture is not as striking as the last entry, or the first three pictures released, but at least it's not the same wall-to-wall, head-inducing CGI of Episodes I, II and III. Even as someone not enamored with this series, I sorely missed past characters, so much more memorable and fun than this bland crowd.

Could someone please make a spin-off for me with just Jabba, the Ewoks and Yoda?

C+

Review: "Fences"

The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning August Wilson was, I would argue, one of the finest American playwrights of the 20th century. Prior to his death at age 60 in 2005, he had penned 16 plays, including a collection of 10, dubbed "The Pittsburgh Cycle," depicting the African-American experience in Pittsburgh in each decade of the century. His piece set in the 1950s, Fences, won Wilson his first Pulitzer and only career Tony Award in Best Play.

Now, Fences has been adapted to the big screen by leading man and director Denzel Washington, who brought along with him most of his fellow cast from the immensely successful, Tony-winning 2010 revival of the play. This marks the first time a Wilson play has been brought to the silver screen and the result, while imperfect, still packs a solid punch.

Fences focuses on the Maxson family - father and breadwinner Troy (Washington), his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory (Jovan Adepo). There's also Troy's brother Gabe (Mykelti Williamson), whose head injury in World War II left him mentally impaired; Bono (Stephen Henderson), Troy's best friend and a constant presence in the Maxson house; and Lyons (Russell Hornsby), Troy's estranged son, whose dreams of becoming a musician don't sit well with his father. That's largely on account of Troy's failing earlier in life to become a professional baseball player, something he believes was on account of the color of his skin but, in actuality, was due to his age. That sentiment creates great conflict in the home when Cory gets scouted by a college football team - something Troy is adamantly against - and blood further boils among the Maxsons when Troy reveals something to Rose that will forever alter their marriage.

Wilson's words are stirring as ever in Fences and the acting is dazzling all-around. Davis, who is largely relegated to the background in the film's first half, walks away with the picture's back half in a powerhouse, enormously empathetic turn. Adepo is a great find and Henderson a real charmer, managing to steal moments with a simple smile. In the demanding and commanding role of Troy, Washington does fine work selling Wilson's brilliant dialogue. His performance does, however, seem more tailored to the stage than screen - where Davis has toned down her delivery a bit to fit the new medium, Washington is still playing the back row of the balcony.

Washington's direction of Fences is a bit on the staid side - considering this, The Great Debaters and Antwone Fisher collectively, he certainly seems a more compelling force in front of, as opposed to behind the camera. The picture recalls recent stage-to-screen adaptations like August: Osage County and Doubt that, without a great filmmaker calling the shots, got all of their mileage out of the screenplay and performances.

That isn't to say Fences is a bad film in the least - it's a must-see for Davis's performance alone. And I would love to see additional Wilson works adapted to the screen, except preferably with another, more daring director at the helm.

B+

Review: "La La Land"

Ah, the movie musical. When done right, it can create more magic upon the silver screen than any other film genre. Singin' in the Rain, All That Jazz, even Little Shop of Horrors - all make me swoon. I've been all too often underwhelmed, however, by recent offerings - ho-hum stage-to-screen adaptations of the likes of The Producers, The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables, among others. Even the Oscar-winning Chicago I felt missed the mark, albeit to a lesser extent than those three.

So, I was of course ecstatic when I first heard about filmmaker Damien Chazelle - whose Whiplash I was completely head-over-heels for - collaborating with the endlessly charming Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling on an original (!) musical for the big screen. Oddly enough, the result, La La Land, is something I think works a bit better as a love story than it does a musical.

The story - Mia (Stone), an aspiring actress who works as a barista on a Hollywood studio lot, meets Sebastian (Gosling), a brilliant jazz pianist who makes ends meet playing uninspiring Christmas jingles at a restaurant. Their brief first encounter is during a moment of road rage on a busy Los Angeles highway. Mia later discovers Sebastian playing a gorgeous composition at the restaurant (which gets him fired from that gig) and sees him perform again (a not-so-gorgeous tune this time) at a party months later.

At this point, they (at last!) start to warm up to each other, and Mia and Sebastian create plenty of adorable moments, but the relationship is greatly tested by their careers. Mia finds herself rejected in audition after audition, while Sebastian is pressured to abandon his classic jazz sound for something more mainstream and pop-heavy. The love between these two is palpable and undeniable but hey, we're talking about a city infamous for building dreamers up, only to tear them down.

Scattered throughout the picture are, of course, an array of original songs, composed by Justin Hurwitz, who also worked on Chazelle's Whiplash. There are some goodies here - I particularly liked "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)," performed by Stone, and "Mia and Sebastian's Theme," a key piano composition of Sebastian's - but I have to admit, I did not leave the theater humming a whole lot. The splashy opening number "Another Day of Sun" was all too reminiscent to me of those cheesy late-'90s Gap commercials that brought swing music back to the mainstream. Other tunes are well-choreographed on the screen but fail to much resonate beyond the dancing. Still, the Hurwitz orchestrations on the whole are pretty great and Chazelle has a fine grasp on how to effectively shoot a musical.

Beyond the music, there are of course the film's stars, Stone and Gosling, both of who truly dazzle here. Yes, they're irresistible to watch, and can sing and dance pretty darn well to boot, but these are two powerful, subtle, even often times heartbreaking turns, worthy of all the attention they've garnered thus far. When Mia abandons a dud of a date to join Sebastian at a screening of Rebel Without a Cause? Talk about sparks flying.

From a technical perspective, the picture looks terrific, with lovely cinematography by Linus Sandgren and production design by David Wasco. The film is edited by Tom Cross, who won a richly deserved Oscar for his work on Whiplash.

Is La La Land among the all-time great movie musicals? Not in the least. I don't even think it's Chazelle's strongest film or quite among the best pictures of 2016. It is, however, a real charmer and an immense delight to sit back and watch Stone and Gosling take over the screen. And hey, even if it's not a great musical, it'd still be pretty sweet if this film inspires non-musical lovers to check out some of the older, better stuff.

B+

Review: "Jackie"

Not long after the assassination of her husband, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy invited acclaimed political journalist and historian Theodore White to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts to discuss the 35th U.S. president's legacy. The interview resulted in a Life Magazine essay that famously, at the suggestion of the first lady, drew a parallel between the late president and King Arthur of Camelot.

Director Pablo Larrain's captivating Jackie - one of the year's finest motion pictures, if perhaps not the best - utilizes this conversation as a means to delve into the psyche of the first lady (Natalie Portman, in a dead-on, tour-de-force turn that somehow manages to outdo her Oscar-winning Black Swan performance), before, during and following the tragic events of November 22, 1963.

We watch as Kennedy films her immensely successful A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy television special and are treated to select few, rich moments of the glory days of the Kennedy presidency, when the White House was filled with grand entertainment and joy. Then, of course, there are the horrors of that fall day in Dallas, Texas, the gruesomeness of the assassination itself and the whirlwind nature of the events to follow for the first lady, from Lyndon B. Johnson's abrupt swearing-in to the presidency to the countless and complex arrangements Kennedy needed to make over the days to follow. There are powerful scenes between the first lady and the grieving Robert F. Kennedy (Peter Sarsgaard), her longtime friend and assistant Nancy Tuckerman (Greta Gerwig) and the warm and enlightening Father Richard McSorley (John Hurt).

While there are a number of impressive, convincing performances to be found throughout Jackie - beyond those mentioned, John Carroll Lynch (as LBJ), Beth Grant (as Lady Bird Johnson) and Billy Crudup (as White) are also memorable - this is of course largely still a one-woman show, and Portman completely nails it. Not a false note is struck as Portman goes through a plethora of emotions, and she's greatly supported by Larrain's brilliant, often Kubrick-like direction and a marvelous screenplay by Noah Oppenheim.

Jackie is a true sight to behold, and to listen to, for that matter. The look and feel of the time is captured beautifully by costume designer Madeline Fontaine, cinematographer Stephane Fontaine and production designer Jean Rabasse. Mica Levi's dazzling, often overwhelming original score is surely one of the year's best.

Natalie, go get that Oscar #2!

A+

Review: "Manchester By the Sea"

When done right, no film genre can hit home for me quite as intensely as the family drama. I'm talking about the kinds of movies that, particularly in the late-1970s, into the 1980s, used to dominate the Oscars (often to the chagrin of those preferring something more visually compelling), not because they were sprawling epics or terribly "important" films but because the acting, writing and storytelling were so spot-on and reminded us vividly of our own family situations. I think of three Best Picture winners in particular - Kramer vs. Kramer, Terms of Endearment and, one of my all-time favorite films, Ordinary People.

In 2000, writer/director Kenneth Lonergan delivered a motion picture nearly on-par with those - You Can Count on Me, which gave Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo opportunities to turn in career-best work. Longeran's latest film, Manchester By the Sea, is even better than his 2000 effort.

In the film, Casey Affleck, in one of the year's very best performances, portrays Lee Chandler, an emotionally distant but easily agitated man who one winter day receives the worst of news - his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has died from heart failure. Lee, who years ago left his hometown of Manchester, Massachusetts following another truly tragic incident, must return to that Cape Ann town to get his late brother's affairs in order. While going over Joe's will, Lee is stunned to discover that he has been named guardian to his teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Hardly prepared to take on those duties, and of course grappling with the death of his beloved brother, Lee also finds himself haunted by his Manchester past, unable to escape memories involving his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams), who still lives in the town.

Lonergan may have a hit-or-miss record as a screenwriter - among his credits are the middling Gangs of New York and flat-out dreadful The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle - but, when attached to the right project, particularly when he's directing to boot, he is a true master at crafting rich, real and engrossing characters and dialogue. Not a false note is struck here.

The acting, with the exception of a distracting Matthew Broderick cameo late in the picture, is first-rate all-around. Affleck dominates the film but Hedges is so impressive too - he reminded me a ton of both Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People and Michael O'Keefe in The Great Santini. Those two young men garnered Oscar nods (with Hutton winning) and I sure do hope Hedges can do the same. Williams and Chandler are fantastic too, albeit in far more limited roles, and there are many other great, small performances to be found throughout the film.

If I have a quibble with the film, beyond Broderick, it's a rather minor one - the picture's score, composed by Lesley Barber, is at times a nice one, complimenting scenes. There are key moments, however, when the music is curiously bombastic - in one critical scene in particular, it sounds like something straight out of The Phantom of the Opera. It's pretty bizarre but not bad enough for me to not give the film an...

A+

Review: "Rules Don't Apply"

With 14 Oscar nominations under his belt for directing, writing, producing and acting in his pictures, including one competitive victory (for directing 1981's Reds) and one honorary prize, Warren Beatty is unimpeachably among the most powerful and talented figures to have ever graced Hollywood.

Yet, for such a legend, looking back, the Beatty filmography is actually an awfully spotty one. For every tour-de-force production like Bonnie and Clyde and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, there's a supreme underwhelmer like Ishtar and The Fortune. Beatty's directorial efforts - just look at the classic likes of Heaven Can Wait, Bulworth and his Oscar-winning Reds - have generally been terrific...when he's allowed his name to be officially attached in the end. It is well-known Beatty called the shots on both Love Affair and Town & Country, both of which are depressingly dismal endeavors.

Rules Don't Apply, Beatty's first official directing-writing credit since Bulworth in 1998, falls somewhere toward the middle of the filmmaker's collective work. It's nowhere near as stunning as Reds or entertaining as Heaven Can Wait but nor does it induce the headaches that other Beatty works have.

Set in 1958, the picture opens with Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a devout Baptist beauty queen from small town Virginia, arriving in Hollywood, where she plans to become an actress. Under contract with the elusive entrepreneur and film tycoon Howard Hughes (Beatty), Mabrey spends her early days in La La Land getting acquainted with her driver, Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), who is also on the Hughes payroll. The two carry on a charming flirtation that tests their staunch religious beliefs and must remain hidden from Hughes, who forbids romance between his employees and actresses.

The film's opening, Beatty-free half hour marks a fine showcase for Collins and Ehrenreich, both immensely talented and charismatic performers, long overdue for such leading turns. While their chemistry is a delight, however, this section suffers a ton from poor editing, with abrupt cutaways as actors seem to be in mid-sentence and an overwhelming feeling that a hefty chunk of material was left on the cutting room floor. There is a scene, for instance, featuring the great Ed Harris and Amy Madigan in which the Oscar-nominees have virtually no dialogue. Scenes featuring Annette Bening as Mabrey's mother also feel trimmed to the bone. Perhaps this explains why Rules Don't Apply is officially, curiously billed as running two hours and thirty-eight minutes in length, yet in actuality only runs for about two - Beatty and his editors, no doubt, were taking a chainsaw to this thing at the 11-'o-clock hour.

The remaining hour and half of the film is largely dominated by Beatty's Hughes, who at this point in his life was a notorious recluse, clearly plagued by mental illness and in very hot water with the U.S. government. Beatty's performance is a true roller coaster ride - while I don't think his Hughes is quite as compelling as Leonardo DiCaprio's in The Aviator or Jason Robards' in Melvin and Howard, it's still an awfully convincing portrayal and his energy keeps the film from ever dozing off in his scenes. Beatty hits so many notes here, both tragic and funny, and has terrific chemistry with his leads.

While Beatty's performance is a memorable one for sure, however, his writing and directing are, I'm afraid, haphazard and unfocused. Yes, Rules Don't Apply looks fantastic - how could it not with the likes of Caleb Deschanel taking on the cinematography and Albert Wolsky designing the costumes - and the central trio of actors are terrific but these great things, all too much of the time, feel lost at sea in a choppily edited and convoluted endeavor.

Fans of the filmmaker need to see this. It is, after all, the rarest of occasions when we get a new Warren Beatty flick. And I'm certainly hopeful he goes on to write, direct, produce and star in more feature films - don't allow the disappointing reviews and box office receipts deter you! But yes, Rules Don't Apply, while sporting several worthwhile things, does feel like a bit of a missed opportunity.

C+

Review: "Nocturnal Animals"

Renowned fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut, the 2009 release A Single Man, often had the look, feel and depth of an Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds commercial. It was saved and made worthwhile by the dazzling work of leading man Colin Firth, who garnered a richly deserved Oscar nomination (and, in my humble opinion, should have won). Firth managed to transcend the curious emptiness of A Single Man, a picture lavishly shot but exceedingly difficult to otherwise connect with.

Ford's sophomore effort, Nocturnal Animals, lacks a commanding performance quite on the same level of Firth's but does show some modest improvements on the filmmaker's end. About half of Nocturnal Animals, in fact, is a pretty damn great and exciting movie. But boy, it's a rough endeavor on the whole.

Without giving too much away, the picture, based on Austin Wright's 1993 novel Tony and Susan, opens with Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), a wealthy Los Angeles art gallery owner, receiving a manuscript in the mail, titled "Nocturnal Animals," from her estranged ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). While her hunky dud of a second husband (Armie Hammer) is away on business, Susan dives into the novel, which turns out to be a horrifying story about a man whose family road trip turns into a grisly nightmare.

Susan begins to see parallels between the story and her relationship with Edward and the film bounces around among present day, Susan's past with Edward and the story in the manuscript itself. The novel is lived out on screen by Gyllenhaal again, portraying the tortured lead protagonist, and features a dynamite, intense turn by Michael Shannon as a chain-smoking local detective.

The story without the story here turns out, by far, to be the most compelling material. Gyllenhaal and Shannon do career-best work and are supported by convincing turns from Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Isla Fisher to boot. Here, Ford shows a real knack for building suspense and crafting engrossing, empathetic characters. Abel Korzeniowski's sublime, Pino Donaggio-like original score and Seamus McGarvey's gorgeous photography compliment the director's efforts.

Problem is, that's only about half the picture. The other half, with Adams in the spotlight, is plagued by many of the same issues that dragged down Ford's first film. Here, it's all style over substance, with only the contributions of Korzeniowski and McGarvey to really write home about. Scenes involving Susan's eccentric art gallery colleagues are a snooze and, just as the scenes in the novel begin to give the picture a real lift, we get a momentum-killing cutaway back to Adams. Not that Adams isn't in fine form here but she isn't given nearly as the same opportunities as Gyllenhaal to let it rip and there are only so many distinct ways to capture Susan looking concerned or disturbed.

Watching Nocturnal Animals, I thought to myself, this is probably what The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would have looked like...had Brian De Palma directed them. And crossed them with a cologne commercial. The film is worth a look for many reasons but, fair warning, it is kind of a mess overall.

B-

Review: "Loving"

In 1967, the landmark civil rights decision by the United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case was brought by Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple sentenced to a year in prison by the Commonwealth of Virginia for marrying each other. As a result of the court's ruling, the number of interracial marriages in the U.S. increased significantly over the years and decades to come and the decision was cited as precedent in future federal court decisions pertaining to the unconstitutionality of restrictions on same-sex marriage in the U.S.

Loving, the immensely moving new film written and directed by Jeff Nichols, follows Richard (the chameleon-like Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) as they are harassed and arrested by local authorities for violating the Commonwealth's anti-miscegenation laws. Richard and Mildred move to Washington D.C. to remain married and raise a family but yearn to someday make it back to their family and friends in Virginia. The couple at last sees some light at the end of the tunnel when the American Civil Liberties Union approaches the couple about filing the lawsuit against the Commonwealth that will ultimately lead to the 1967 decision.

The picture is so whole-heartedly convincing that it often looks and feels more like a documentary than a scripted, performed film. Edgerton and Negga do beautiful, lived-in work as Richard and Mildred and they're surrounded by a fine supporting cast, including Nick Kroll, Michael Shannon, Bill Camp and Sharon Blackwood. Nichols' efforts are completely spot-on, with countless aggravating, inspiring, sweet and even occasionally very funny moments. Not a false note is struck. Kudos too to David Wingo's fine original score.

Expect to see lots of Loving this coming awards season.

A

Review: "Arrival"

One of these years, Amy Adams, you will (at last!) take home an Oscar.

Adams, who during her career has stolen scenes from the typically commanding likes of Leonardo DiCaprio (in Catch Me If You Can), Meryl Streep (Doubt) and Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), plus delivered a number of terrific leading turns (Enchanted, in particular), is in exquisite form in the latest film from director Denis Villenueve, Arrival. It might well be her finest work to date, though I've yet to see her comparably acclaimed work in the upcoming Nocturnal Animals.

In the film, Adams portrays Louise Banks, a brilliant linguistics professor recruited by the U.S. military to lead its team of investigators in what has become a global race to successfully communicate with one of a dozen extraterrestrial spacecrafts that have touched down across Earth.

Banks, supported, among others, by a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) and U.S. Army colonel (Forest Whitaker), comes face-to-face with the aliens - dubbed Heptapods - that have landed in the U.S. and works tirelessly to decode the creatures' complicated language. What, Banks hopes to discover, is exactly their purpose for being here? All the while, much of the rest of the world sinks into turmoil and war over these visits and Banks is incessantly haunted - and yet, quite often, helped - by memories of her deceased daughter.

The opening half hour of Arrival comes close to capturing that same awe-inspiring feeling we all had during the finale of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when Richard Dreyfuss' character, following an arduous journey, finally witnessed, in breathtaking fashion, the arrival of extraterrestrial beings. This picture is also awfully convincing in portraying just what the chaotic global reaction would probably be to such an event.

With that said, after the movie magic that is the first encounter with the extraterrestrials, Arrival has few additional goods to deliver. It stagnates. The picture, as a whole, does not prove as compelling or exciting as Villeneuve's exhilarating Sicario from last year and I found the constant back-and-forth with moments involving her late daughter both overly manipulative and a case of overediting.

Adams is spectacular throughout and ultimately keeps Arrival plenty afloat but, beyond her work, the first quarter of the movie and Bradford Young's stunning cinematography, I don't think the picture works nearly as incredibly as it should have. I suppose the most apt comparison to the film would be Robert Zemeckis' Contact, which also sported one hell of a leading performance (from Jodie Foster) and some intriguing ideas but otherwise looked and felt curiously sterile.

B+

Review: "Moonlight"

When, early next year, I sit down and reflect on all of the cinema I viewed over the course of 2016, there is scant doubt in my mind that some of the most beautiful, moving moments I witnessed all year will have come from director Barry Jenkins' Moonlight.

For that matter, when I hang up my hat as a moviegoer a century (hopefully longer!) from now, I anticipate this exquisite film will rank sky-high on my list of all-time greatest coming-of-age stories.

The picture, based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, traces the life of young Chiron through three chapters, in his childhood, teen years and adulthood.

Nicknamed "Little" as a child, the timid, withdrawn Chiron is bullied by classmates and finds minimal comfort at home with his controlling, drug-abusing mother (Naomie Harris). His only solace comes in moments spent alongside his kind, empathetic best friend Kevin and a crack dealer named Juan (the brilliant Mahershala Ali) he befriends and slowly opens up to.

As a teenager, Chiron continues to face harassment at school, often violent, and his mother declines into full-out addiction. All the while, he still has Kevin to turn to, and their relationship blossoms into something so much more substantial and special. It also, however, is complicated by the peer pressures Kevin faces by classmates who despise and wish to inflict pain on Chiron.

The third chapter finds a far tougher and more tenacious Chiron in his adulthood. Now going by the name "Black" (given to him by Kevin back in high school), he emulates a key past figure from his life and maintains a shaky, long-distance relationship with his mother, who has at last sought to keep herself out of trouble. Chiron has not seen or spoken with Kevin in years but that changes one evening when he receives a phone call from his old best friend.

From start to finish, Moonlight is full of immensely powerful, often startling moments. Jenkins captures nuanced feelings of childhood in a way I haven't seen so vividly drawn since scenes from Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life. The picture is often a heartbreaker for sure but never manipulative and just about everything here rings true. While certain images from the first chapter have most stayed with me since seeing the film, I think Moonlight's dialogue especially comes to life in the final half hour, as Chiron sits down with the man who perhaps knows him best.

Ali and Harris have garnered the bulk of chatter in terms of awards season speculation and both are fantastic, no doubt. But it's a real shame if we neglect to just as loudly rave about the rest of Moonlight's incredible cast. Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes are devastatingly good as the child, teen and adult Chirons, respectively. Andre Holland is excellent as adult Kevin and Jaden Piner and Jharrel Jerome are strong too portraying him as a child and teenager. A real standout for me here was also Janelle Monae, warm and engaging in her scenes as Juan's wife and another of the few figures Chiron can count on - she has a bright screen presence that all but ensures a great film career to come.

I have came across some wariness to Moonlight from moviegoers who either view the film has a guaranteed downer or loathe cinema concerning drugs and won't check it out on that basis alone. To folks in either of those two groups - this thing is a real must-see, gorgeously filmed, stuffed with one extraordinary performance after another and featuring some of the sharpest writing I've encountered in the 2010s. Go!

A