[Safe] is set in 1987, historically, the start of the AIDS epidemic being recognized outside of the gay community by massive organizations. In 1986, four years after the first 600 deadly cases in the US caused the CDC to label the auto-immune disease as an epidemic, American companies could fire employees for contracting the disease. At the start of 1987, The World Health Organization launched their global program, the AIDS quilt was made, Larry Kramer's ACT UP was formed to…

One of the most comionate films you'll ever see about how being poor sets up a potential avalanche of financial consequences for attempting to do something to better your situation through moving. There is a cost attached to every moment. For that to , though, the entire film rests on Michelle Williams performance and she succeeds.

I want to share a story because it overlaps so much with this film, down to the very year and route. In 2008 I…

Transfixing when it's a dreamy-hazed alcoholic fever dream. (Particularly all the excuses people make when they're quitting, all the more that pile up when it's two people "quitting" at the same time – "Guinness is food." "It's a 30-year Scotch." We're in Ireland and we just wrecked the car.)

It's a bit plodding and heavy footed when it's a bog monster witch thing. But Jared Harris does an ace Christopher Walken impression and it's very funny to have a house…

As a fairytale (without a fairytale ending), Chicken with Plums is beguiling. A man asks for death after his wife breaks his violin. And the Angel of Death narrates his story: what brought him to that decision, and the fate of his children after his decision.

The lost love of a beautiful woman is at the center of this, of course, as it made him a great violinist when her father rejected him as a marriageable suitor and then later…

The best aspect of this courtroom drama is how patiently it reveals its intention to show how a microscopic lens on a relationship can be uglier and more hurtful than existing in the relationship itself. That level of scrutiny over an argument or the cloud of doubt over an unknowable intent. Sandra Hüller is great but I was immensely impressed by the arc and performance of her young son, Milo Machado Graner, who is having to navigate an adult methodology…

To give a hint at what's special about TÁR you needn't look further than the opening credits. The opening credits start backwards with of the crew that generally are at the very end of the end credits, like catering and production units and assistant editors. This is a movie about how an ego can grow too big and turn to manipulation when one role gets too much credit in a collaborative field. An orchestra is like a film set,…