‘DUMBO’ BEGS THE QUESTION: WHY?
Disney’s new live-action Dumbo isn’t awful….but it isn’t very good, either. Why waste so much money and talent on a film that is foredoomed to take second place to a classic? I know it’s all about...
View ArticleDIANE: A SLICE OF LIFE WORTH SAMPLING
Mary Kay Place is an asset to any movie she’s in, and in Diane she is the center of attention. In his narrative filmmaking debut, writer-director Kent Jones has built a story around her, based on...
View ArticleBE NATURAL: A WOMAN REWRITES FILM HISTORY
Be Natural is a revelatory film about pioneering female filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché. Writer-director Pamela B. Green has done a superior job of telling her story in this lively account of a neglected...
View ArticleROCKETMAN
First, the good news: Taron Egerton gives a breathtakingly good performance in Rocketman. He even accomplishes the near-impossible: making you forget you’re not watching the real Elton John. The...
View ArticleTHE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
The gifted Quebecois writer-director Denys Arcand has only himself to blame for the slight feeling of disappointment that his new film engenders. The man who gave us such provocative films as Jesus of...
View ArticleTHE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE
If someone submitted this story as a piece of fiction, no one would believe it. The notion that a popular baseball catcher had a superior intellect and wound up spying for the U.S. government is simply...
View ArticleGODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS
Two hours wasted: that’s how I feel after watching Godzilla: King of the Monsters. This bloated production starts out as an enjoyably tacky monster movie but doesn’t know when to quit. Every...
View ArticleLATE NIGHT: SMART COMEDY, PERFECT CAST
Mindy Kaling has written perfectly-tailored starring roles for herself and the great Emma Thompson in Late Night, a smart comedy that manages to be relevant without forgetting to be funny. Thompson is...
View ArticleBLUE NOTE RECORDS: BEYOND THE NOTES
As a jazz aficionado I expected to hear a lot of good music in this documentary and anticipated a certain amount of archival footage and interviews with some of the great musicians who appeared on the...
View ArticleTOY STORY 4: A SUMMERTIME TREAT
I was dubious about the first sequel to Pixar’s wonderful Toy Story, which turned out to be terrific. But a fourth go-round for Woody, Buzz and company? I harbored doubts but I should have had more...
View ArticleYESTERDAY: WHAT A LETDOWN
A good idea is a rare and precious gift. Screenwriter Richard Curtis has had many of them, leading to such films as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill. He and Jack Barth had...
View ArticleSPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME
The best way to enjoy Spider-Man: Far from Home is to embrace your inner 12-year-old. Once I did that, and realized that the tone of this movie is completely different from Avengers: Endgame, I had a...
View ArticleTHE FAREWELL: A SLEEPER THAT CROSSES BOUNDARIES
For her second feature, up-and-coming writer-director Lulu Wang has drawn on her own experiences to craft a touching story of a Chinese family, told from the point of view of a young Americanized woman...
View ArticleSTUBER: START MAKING SENSE
A good comedy has to have structure, just like a dramatic film, and should possess some degree of logic. It can be internal logic, once the movie has established its concept and boundary lines, but it...
View ArticleSWORD OF TRUST: LIGHT AND SATISFYING
I enjoy Lynn Shelton’s work overall but I think Sword of Trust is her best feature to date. It doesn’t seem like an improv-based film at all; it plays as well as a scripted comedy but manages to retain...
View ArticleGOOD BOYS: JUST WHAT YOU EXPECT
When the first words out of young Jacob Tremblay’s mouth are “F—, yeah!” as he’s about to ogle pictures on his laptop, you know what you’re in for with Good Boys. The MPAA’s rating carries this...
View ArticleWHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE
If ever a movie had a recipe for success, it’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Based on Maria Semple’s best-selling novel, it stars the great Cate Blanchett with Richard Linklater directing. So why did I...
View ArticleTHE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON: ANOTHER SUMMER SLEEPER
The Peanut Butter Falcon has already proven to be a crowd-pleaser, winning a key Audience Award at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival. It’s easy to see why. First-time writer-directors Tyler...
View ArticleSTUBER: START MAKING SENSE
A good comedy has to have structure, just like a dramatic film, and should possess some degree of logic. It can be internal logic, once the movie has established its concept and boundary lines, but it...
View ArticleSWORD OF TRUST: LIGHT AND SATISFYING
I enjoy Lynn Shelton’s work overall but I think Sword of Trust is her best feature to date. It doesn’t seem like an improv-based film at all; it plays as well as a scripted comedy but manages to retain...
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