The Cinema Corner – January 19th

Movie of the week – There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest collaboration with Daniel Day Lewis, Phantom Thread, doesn’t hit Irish cinemas for another couple of weeks, but you can catch their previous pairing, 2007’s There Will Be Blood, screening from a 35mm print Saturday night at the Lighthouse. One of the best movies of this century, it tells the gripping story of a ruthless oilman’s rise to power, with Lewis giving arguably his best performance prior to Phantom Thread.

The Post

Steven Spielberg’s The Post documents the quandary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and editor Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) found themselves in in the early ’70s when they came into possession of the Pentagon papers, a series of documents detailing American military involvement in Vietnam. Spielberg’s film is for the most part a thrilling, old-fashioned newspaper movie, buoyed by a stellar cast, but in the closing stretch it begins to insult the audience’s intelligence with a series of dumbed down speeches.

Lover for a Day

French movies often feature borderline misogynistic portrayals of young women, and Philippe Garrel’s Lover for a Day, the story of a college professor whose affair with a student is disrupted when his daughter moves into his home, is no different. Yet like so many French films, the strength of the performances from the actresses involved (Esther Garrel and Louise Chevillotte) elevates it into something mildly compelling, and the black and white photography captures Paris at its most handsome.

The Commuter

Liam Neeson continues his late career reinvention as an everyman action hero in The Commuter, in which he plays a businessman who becomes embroiled in a dangerous criminal conspiracy on his evening train ride home. Neeson is always watchable, and the film is fun until a final half hour when both the train and the film itself derail.

By Eric Hillis of themoviewaffler.com