Many years ago, I interviewed Darren Aronofsky for his maiden effort, PI (a terrific film that should be on everyone’s watchlist). In the course of our conversation about the nexus of Kabbalah and computing, he opined that, as in PI, he wanted to populate his films with, in his words, tough Jews. There are certainly… Read More »
THE FANTASTIC 4: FIRST STEPS
It is with no small measure of relief that I am able to say Marvel’s THE FANTASTIC 4: FIRST STEPS finally succeeds in bringing one of my childhood favorites to the screen. This iteration centers itself on the lively dynamics of the Richards-Storm-Grimm clan of biological and logical family such that the quartet’s greatest superpower… Read More »
THE KARATE KID: LEGENDS
There are many montages in THE KARATE KID: LEGENDS. So many montages. Training montages. Hanging out montages. More training montages. Montages of flashbacks with narration. Montages of montages of flashbacks. As irksome as it is, it has the virtue of symbolizing the raison-d’etre of this sequel to a sequel to a reboot of a remake.… 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 »
LOOK INTO MY EYES
The unseen terrain explored in Lana Wilson’s LOOK INTO MY EYES is not what lies on the other side of this mortal veil. In this immensely moving documentary, she takes on something much more profound. She is examining in sometimes raw detail the nature of faith juxtaposed with the overwhelming need for certainty, or at… Read More »
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE
A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE returns us to the day murderous aliens with the supersonic sense of hearing first invaded our planet, but with a different location, New York City, and a new cast of characters. It is a worthy addition to the universe created by John Krasinski, though this time Mr. Kraskinski’s contribution was… Read More »
PROBLEMISTA
There is so much to admire about Julio Torres’s PROBLEMISTA, from its magnificent manifestations of metaphor to its tweaking of subjective norms and random exploitation in a provocative satire as dark as night, but as hopeful as a buoyant full moon. The one that reigns supreme, though, is what Torres has done with the desperate,… Read More »
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
The important takeaway from GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE, and, if one is being blunt, the only reason for it to exist, aside from those delightful miniature Stay-Puft marshmallow imps, is the delightful discovery that Kumail Nanjiani may very well be the cinematic heir of Bill Murray. Certainly, they are the only ones who consistently seem to… Read More »
CABRINI
CABRINI is a handsome throwback to the hagiographies done so well by Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Replete with luxurious cinematography worthy of anything to be found in a fine arts museum, it is fueled by a passionate, coolly confidant performance by Cristiana Dell’Anna as Mother Cabrini, America’s first saint. Amid the expected, and… Read More »
INSIDE
If INSIDE were a short film, anything up to the Academy™ definition of same, which is to say, 40 minutes or less including the credits, it would be an incisive deconstruction of art as commerce rather than aesthetics driven by a powerful performance by Willem Dafoe. Instead, it runs for 1 hour and 45 minutes,… Read More »