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 »
SCREAM VI
The Scream franchise is not one that wants to be taken seriously as a straight horror film. From the first iconoclastic installment so many years ago, its aim, it’s very raison d’être, was to call out the conventions of slasher films and then serve up a gory slashfest to an audience primed to laugh at… Read More »
MORBIUS
Let me start with a spoiler. MORBIUS is not a good film. This grim and grimy excursion into the Marvel Universe has the special effects. It has the clash of superhero and super villain. It has a bustling metropolis (New York City) where the residents, and at least one federal agent, are quick to blame… Read More »
MARRY ME
MARRY ME falls into the category of mostly harmless. As a rom-com, it shadows its inspiration, NOTTING HILL, at a respectful distance in an exercise tailored to showcase its star/co-producer Jennifer Lopez as an actress and a singer fond of sparkly outfits. It’s bright, shiny, and no more serious than its premise of a superstar… Read More »
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Based on Lee Israel’s memoir of the same name, it is not just an intriguing character study of a talented but difficult writer of one New York Time bestseller now on the skids, but also a perceptive consideration of writing as both an art and as a business.
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
As the documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS opens, Bobby Shafran, one of the eponymous strangers, notes that the story he’s about to tell is unbelievable. And it is. But the way that Tim Wardle’s dark meditation on good intentions gone very wrong unfolds, the story of how the three identical triplets separated at birth found each other at the age of 19, is the least of it.
THE GLASS CASTLE — Jeannette Walls Interview
Jeannette Walls is a larger-than-life personality, brimming with energy and a ready laugh that fills a room. That she is still laughing after the childhood she describes in her best-selling memoir, THE GLASS CASTLE is a testament to her innate toughness, and to her ability to appreciate the wonder with which her eccentric parents imbued… Read More »
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 starts with Mr. Wick doing what he does best. That would be mowing his way through a horde of adversaries with a cool precision and a lethal effect. While he is doing this, we are reminded, or introduced to, if we haven’t see the first film, just who exactly Mr. Wick… Read More »
SULLY
As lean and laconic as its director, Clint Eastwood’s SULLY is a gripping but (mostly) unsentimental retelling of how Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed his stricken American Airlines plane in the Hudson River after suffering a bird strike on January 15, 2009. To the public, and the lives of the passengers he saved, he was… Read More »
GHOSTBUSTERS
There are many, many things to love about the GHOSTBUSTERS reboot, and one of them is that it is equally good whether you are a fan of the 1984 version, or if you’ve never heard of it. Director and co-writer (with Katie Dippold) Paul Feig, the man who brought us THE HEAT (co-written with him… Read More »