11 Must-See Movies of November

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (November 11th)

Synopsis: Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) is a young private who returns home from Iraq to discover his entire squadron is being honored during a halftime show at the Thanksgiving Football game. As he prepares for the big event, the realities of his time in Iraq are revealed, threatening his status as a war hero.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is one of the year’s biggest question marks. The latest film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee and adapted from Ben Fountain’s novel, Billy Lynn has sailed under the radar since the year began, odd considering the acclaim for Lee’s previous adaptation The Life of Pi in 2012. Lee is an accomplished director with an utterly astounding body of work, but he’s had a few flops – most recently Taking Woodstock – so he might be due if critical consensus is anything to go off of.

Lee touted an impressive amount of technology employed for Billy Lynn including 4K, 3D and a high frame rate last employed for The Hobbit movies. Unfortunately critical consense over the last few weeks, since receiving its world premiere, has said the overindulgence of tech is the film’s undoing. Several top critics discussed how the high frame rate especially ruined the film, despite it looking so realistic on-screen as to be frightening. It also doesn’t help that, unless you live in a major city, you won’t be able to watch Billy Lynn with all the technological techniques. Its Oscar changes aren’t guaranteed, but it’s worth a look purely for how that technology works, or doesn’t, in the process of serving the narrative.

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