There is something deeply satisfying in watching James Bond or Batman engage in preternatural maneuvers when bringing supervillains to heel. There is something even more deeply satisfying about watching ordinary people rising to the occasion when confronted with an overwhelming crisis, and Alex Parkinson’s LAST BREATH, based on a true story, is a perfectly executed… Read More »
THE APPRENTICE
THE APPRENTICE takes as its focus the relationship between Roy Cohn and the young and hungry Donald Trump of the 1970s. This would be the callow Trump who was stifled by the long shadow cast by his father, Fred (Martin Donovan), and the utter cluelessness about how to play an all too easily rigged system… Read More »
BACK TO BLACK
Any success enjoyed by the Amy Winehouse biopic, BACK TO BLACK, rests squarely on the frail shoulders of the actress playing the singer, Marisa Abela. With an outsized presence like Winehouse herself, Abela channels Winehouse’s violence and vulnerability, making her at once a lost little girl and a musical powerhouse who refused to be pigeonholed… Read More »
ONE LIFE — James Hawes Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. ONE LIFE had been in pre-production for many years before finally premiering now in 2024. When I spoke with its director, James Hawes, via Zoom on March 13, 2024, I couldn’t help but ask him if he thought there was some sort of synchronicity at work with the… Read More »
FERRARI
FERRARI is an exceptional immersive experience. Not just for the way it virtually puts you in the driver’s seat during the racing sequences, but also, and moreso, for the way it puts you in the mind of its title character as he negotiates a major turning point in his life. Michael Mann’s opus about the… Read More »
THE IRON CLAW
Click here to listen to the flashback interview with Sean Durkin for MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE. It would be too easy to pigeonhole THE IRON CLAW as a gloss on toxic masculinity in our culture. To be sure, that element is mightily present in Sean Durkin’s poetic tale of fathers and sons. Based on the… Read More »
PRISCILLA
Rumor has it that the late Lisa Marie Presley was so incensed by the characterization of her father in Sofia Coppola’s PRISCILLA that she vowed to actively denounce the film. This despite the cooperation of her mother, who is also the film’s subject, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley. Further, Elvis Presley Enterprises did not sign off on… Read More »
RADICAL — Eugenio Derbez Interview
Click here to listen to the interview with Eugenio Derbez. Click here to listen to the interview with co-writer Joshua Davis. RADICAL won the Sundance Festival Favorite Award, and the Mill Valley Overall Favorite. It’s no mystery why. Based on the story of Serio Juarez Correa’s, ahem, radical approach to teaching 12-year-olds in the putatively… Read More »
RADICAL — Joshua Davis Interview
Click here to listen to the interview with Joshua Davis. Click here to listen to the interview with Eugenio Derbez. Josh Davis has had a storied career writing on topics as diverse as competitive arm wrestling (he also competed), life behind enemy lines in Iraq, and the legal problems of tech mogul George McAfee, getting… Read More »
GRAN TURISMO
You have to wade through a great deal of treacle in GRAN TURISMO before you get to part of the film that really works. Based (very loosely) on the true story of the gamer who became a race car driver, the first act plays like a very well executed cliché, albeit with a superbly edited… Read More »
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