MovieLoversMontana

Manchester By the Sea 4 out of 4 stars By Bayard Lewis With Oscar season culminating this month, one of the films up for 6 Academy Awards was sadly missed in the theaters by the average American moviegoer.  “Manchester By the Sea” is a dramatic masterpiece that provides a canvas to examine some of the…

The Edge of Seventeen 4 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis Angsty dramas about the experience of the American teenager have a way of winning hearts when they are done in an authentic and earnest way.  Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit”) plays Nadine, a seventeen year old girl whose life story of feeling like an…

Loving 4 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis In 1950’s America, marrying outside of your race was illegal in Virginia and a number of other states.  Richard and Mildred Loving’s relationship could have landed them in prison if they had chosen to stay in the state.  They covertly traveled to Washington DC to get married.…

The Light Between Oceans 3 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis In a tale of love and loss, Michael Fassbender plays Tom Sherbourne, a veteran of World War I who has returned home to settle down to a life of self-seclusion on Janus island as a lighthouse keeper.  At first he resists the romantic…

Inferno 1.5 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis The fate of most of the world’s population is at stake when an eccentric billionaire leaves behind a hidden virus intended to wipe out most of humanity and permanently remedy overpopulation.  Tom Hanks reprises his role as Robert Langdon, an expert in art history, symbolism, and…

Denial 3 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis With recent political upheaval around the world, as consumers of mass media we need to be more vigilant in seeking true, hard facts.  A sad and disturbing legacy of Holocaust denial goes back decades, but came to an important crossroads in 1998 when historian Deborah Lipstadt…

The Birth of a Nation 2.5 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis Films set in early America have a way of pulling at our heartstrings.  Our Founding Fathers declared that ‘all men are created equal’ and yet they were slaveowners who limited equality to their fellow white males.  Some used passages from the Bible…

Deepwater Horizon 3.5 out of 4 stars by Bayard Lewis The worst oil rig disaster in U.S history may seem like a distant memory now because it happened almost seven years ago. For the families of the Deepwater Horizon crew, the accident still carries deep scars. 11 people were killed and the ensuing blowout lasted…

Hitchcock/Truffaut by Bayard Lewis 4 out of 4 stars In 1962 New Wave French filmmaker Francois Truffaut set out to interview Alfred Hitchcock about his creative process as a director. Until that time Hitchcock was viewed by many in the cinema world as a mere entertainer and not a serious creative artist.   Through their week…