Noel Murray, Author at The Playlist

Louis C.K.’s ‘I Love You, Daddy’ Is Challenging, But Enthralling Too [TIFF Review]

September 11, 2017 9:18 pm

Louis C.K. put his award-winning, critically acclaimed, hit FX series “Louie” on indefinite hiatus two years ago, claiming he wanted to do something else for a while. This raised a few eyebrows, since “Louie” h...

‘Rat Film’Is An Exciting, Challenging Exploration Of Baltimore’s Rodent Problem [SXSW Review]

Noel Murray

March 10, 2017 6:45 pm

News, Reviews

Like a lot of major urban centers, the city of Baltimore has such a widespread and long-running rodent infestation problem that the locals have come up with all kinds of clever ways to cope. In Theo Anthony’s d...

Cate Blanchett Is Thrilling & Brings Cinematic Verve To ‘Manifesto’ [Sundance Review]

Noel Murray

January 24, 2017 3:55 pm

News, Reviews

So far during her movie career, Cate Blanchett has done uncanny imitations of Katharine Hepburn and Bob Dylan, and has played characters ranging from queens to elves to identical cousins. But she’s never made a...

Zoe Kazan Shines In Kumail Nanjiani’s Hilarious & Heartfelt New Comedy ‘The Big Sick’ [Sundance Review]

Noel Murray

January 21, 2017 3:28 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Zoe Kazan can transform even the most stock role into something indelible. In the broadest sense, her character Emily in the romantic dramedy “The Big Sick” is about as basic as they come. She’s “the girlfriend...

Michelle Morgan’s ‘L.A. Times’ Is A Funny, Woody Allen-Esque Look At Singlehood In Hollywood [Sundance Review]

Noel Murray

January 21, 2017 10:03 am

News, Reviews

When a film is named after a city, it had better have something to say about the town — especially if it’s taking the name of one of the biggies, like London, Paris, or New York. Writer-director-star Michelle M...

Intense As Hell Horror ‘The Eyes Of My Mother’ Is Also Weirdly Beautiful [Review]

Noel Murray

November 28, 2016 5:27 pm

Reviews

The opening 10 minutes of writer-director Nicolas Pesce’s “The Eyes of My Mother” plays like the art-film version of an old EC Comics horror story — like one of those "Vault of Horror" or "Tales from the Crypt"...

Casey Affleck in 'Manchester by the Sea'

Kenneth Lonergan’s ‘Manchester by the Sea’ Starring Casey Affleck Is Magnificently Messy & Painfully Real [Review]

Noel Murray

November 16, 2016 5:24 pm

Reviews

Toward the end of Kenneth Lonergan’s magnificently messy, painfully real “Manchester by the Sea,” Casey Affleck’s Lee Chandler stands at the gravesite of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler), looking at a stone with...

‘Peter And The Farm’ Chronicles The Full & Fascinating Life Of Peter Dunning [Review]

Noel Murray

November 3, 2016 6:10 pm

Reviews

To any passing outsider, Peter Dunning looks to be one hell of a farmer. In Tony Stone’s entertaining, heartbreaking documentary “Peter and the Farm,” the 68-year-old Dunning walks Stone and his small crew thro...

Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Certain Women’ Starring Michelle Williams & Kristen Stewart Is Utterly Enthralling [Review]

Noel Murray

October 14, 2016 5:14 pm

Reviews

At one point during the development of Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women,” the film was called “Livingston,” a title that refers to the small Montana town where most of the movie takes place. The name-change is ...

Nate Parker’s Sundance Hit ‘The Birth Of A Nation’ [Review]

Noel Murray

October 6, 2016 4:05 pm

Reviews

This is a reprint of our review from the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Subsequent revelations about rape allegations from 1999 against co-writer, director, and star Nate Parker and co-writer Jean Celestin have s...

‘Goat’ With Nick Jonas & James Franco Is An Old-Fashioned Exploitation Film With A Message [Review]

Noel Murray

September 22, 2016 5:52 pm

Reviews

Andrew Neel’s manly melodrama “Goat” is a movie about fraternity hazing that goes heavy on the haze. Roughly half of its 96-minute running time consists of scenes of handsome young college students getting blin...

Lone Scherfig’s ‘Their Finest’ Starring Gemma Arterton & Bill Nighy Is A Charming Feminist Love Letter To Filmmaking [TIFF Review]

Noel Murray

September 13, 2016 9:00 am

Reviews

The charming, rousing WWII romance “Their Finest” is a film that openly stumps for two causes: the value of women in the workplace, and the power of cinema to tell stories that people need to hear. Set in Londo...

Werner Herzog’s ‘Salt and Fire’ Starring Michael Shannon Is Flawed But Distinctive [TIFF Review]

Noel Murray

September 12, 2016 6:25 pm

Reviews

During the 1970s heyday of the German New Wave, Werner Herzog’s earthy adventure films and dramas were hailed for their realism, as the director aimed to recreate onscreen the extreme conditions that his charac...

Season 3 Of Amazon & Jill Soloway’s ‘Transparent’ Is The Show At Its Best [TIFF Review]

Noel Murray

September 12, 2016 9:00 am

Reviews

Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime tend to design their original series to be binged, which gives their creators the freedom to develop stories more slowly and subtly. But there’s still a fundamen...

‘Barry’ Is An Unexpectedly Moving Biopic Of A Young President Obama [TIFF Review]

Noel Murray

September 12, 2016 6:43 am

Reviews

In one of the last scenes of director Vikram Gandhi’s “Barry,” the title character (played by Devon Terrell) sits in a sand trap at the ritzy country club where his girlfriend’s family is hosting a wedding. Bar...

Author Noel Murray