HAROLD AND LILLIAN ON BLU-RAY
EDITOR’S NOTE: This wonderful film is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber and Amazon. Watch the trailer HERE. You don’t have to be a movie buff to fall in love with the story of Harold and...
View ArticleBLADE RUNNER 2049: NOT WORTH THE WAIT
I’ve taken more heat for my negative review of 1982’s Blade Runner than almost anything else I’ve written. I gave the film three shots as director Ridley Scott revised it over the years but it never...
View ArticleTHE FLORIDA PROJECT: A MUST-SEE SLEEPER
The Florida Project is one of this year’s best films, a remarkable slice of life set in and around a motel on the fringes of Orlando, Florida. Here, little kids with no adult supervision find ways to...
View ArticleLOST HORIZON—RESTORED YET AGAIN
Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon was considered a disappointment in 1937, following a string of box-office hits and a passel of Oscars. It was cut from the night of its first preview through its initial...
View ArticleGOODBYE, CHRISTOPHER ROBIN: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
There is a tendency among some critics to dismiss anything genteel and British in a condescending manner, relegating it to the “Masterpiece Theater” demographic. I hope this fate doesn’t befall...
View ArticleTHE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED): WHAT A FAMILY!
I loved this movie from the moment it started. Perhaps it’s because I used to drive in New York City and related to Adam Sandler trying to find a parking space while shouting at fellow drivers. Talk...
View ArticleMARSHALL: A MAN WORTH KNOWING
Chadwick Boseman has made a specialty of playing real-life figures: Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and now Thurgood Marshall, the first black man appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Marshall...
View ArticlePROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN: STRANGER THAN FICTION
The biggest mystery surrounding this film is how its story has remained in the shadows for so many years. I’m sure comic book devotees have known about it, but the details are so juicy I’m surprised no...
View ArticleFACES PLACES: IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST
I’ve exhausted my thesaurus trying to find new words to describe Faces Places: “charming” and “disarming” seem too obvious and overused. Suffice it to say that this collaboration between photographer...
View ArticleWONDERSTRUCK: NOT WHAT I HOPED FOR
I wanted to love this movie and had every reason to think I would. Wonderstruck wowed many critics on the festival circuit, but somehow it never drew me in. Much as I wanted to be engaged, I remained...
View ArticleTHE SNOWMAN: NO THRILLS, NO CHILLS
It’s often a sign of trouble when there are three prominent screenwriters credited for a movie, especially one that’s based on a successful novel. The fact that The Snowman also features separate...
View Article78/52: EXPLORING HITCHCOCK’S SHOWER SCENE
How many movie sequences have taken on the mythic power of the shower scene in Psycho? Few, if any, I would say. It is for that reason that Alexandre O. Philippe has been able to build an entire...
View ArticleONLY THE BRAVE: TRUE TO ITS PROMISE
I wasn’t anxious to see Only the Brave, as I knew it would be upsetting. What I didn’t expect was a film that would make me care so deeply about its heroes, the members of the Granite Mountain Hot...
View ArticleTHE SQUARE: SATIRE THAT’S WORTH YOUR TIME
The Square is a sly social satire that demands patience from its audience, but like last year’s Toni Erdmann, there are ample rewards for those who stay the course. If you saw Swedish writer-director...
View ArticleNOVITIATE: A PEEK INSIDE A SECRET WORLD
What motivates a girl to join a convent and give herself over to Jesus Christ? That’s the question writer-director Maggie Betts attempts to answer in her compelling drama Novitiate. The story is set in...
View ArticleSUBURBICON: YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE THERE
There’s no use beating about the bush: I really didn’t like this movie. It tries to embrace both social satire and black comedy but its tone is strangely somber and its approach heavy-handed. With a...
View ArticleFOCUSING ON ‘JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD’
There aren’t many documentaries about writers, past or present, but actor and filmmaker Griffin Dunne had unique access to author Joan Didion because she is his aunt. The result is a highly personal...
View ArticleLAST FLAG FLYING: THREE GREAT ACTORS AT WORK
It’s a pleasure to watch Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne bring their disparate characters to life in Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying, an actor’s vehicle if there ever was one....
View ArticleLADY BIRD: A TRUTHFUL TEENAGE PORTRAIT
Greta Gerwig has made an impressive debut feature as writer and director with Lady Bird. It isn’t every day you see a film so attuned to the outsized drama of adolescent life. The film is bursting with...
View ArticleTHOR RAGNAROK: IRREVERENT FUN IN THE MCU
Marvel has a gift for repeatedly giving its fans the unexpected. Who would have dreamed that Thor, one of their most stoic characters, would star in one of the studio’s goofiest films? Thor Ragnarok...
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