TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Though Carey Mulligan receives the top credit on the film's official poster, Dee Rees's new Netflix film is truly an ensemble picture. Everyone gets a chance to shine here, and that doesn't mean one character gets his/her "Oscar moment" where they deliver a teary-eyed monologue and then we can forget about them. Like life, there truly is no main character, and Rees mines this southern WWII character study for everything that it's worth: Mudbound is a rich, tragic success. The film is nearly deceptive in its straightforwardness. We see Laura (Mulligan) meet/be courted by a man she's not particularly in love with, Henry (Jason Clarke). She'd honestly be more interested in dancing with his war-bound brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), a charismatic drinker. After marrying, the McAllan clan (including Henry's prejudiced father, played by Jonathan Banks) move to a farm in Mississippi after being duped. There they share the land with tenant farmer Hap (Ro...

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog knows I'm a big James Franco fan, but I don't worship the guy. I love his zany performances in Spring Breakers and Pineapple Express , respect his more serious work in excellent dramas like the first two Spider-Man  movies and especially 127 Hours . But here's the weird thing I noted in my Oz the Great and Powerful  review: he's been upstaged by primates: twice. The first came courtesy in Rise of the Planet of the Apes , where Franco had the spotlight easily taken from him by Andy Serkis' masterful creation: Caesar. The other problem with the 2011 prequel to the superior 1968 original was, though it was building up to it, it still focused too much on humans when all we want to see were the apes. I am very happy to say this film took note of our laments, and corrected them. Caesar is a father now, his wife just giving birth to another baby boy, along with his other son, Blue Eyes. It's been a decade since humans have ap...