Right from the first scene in Bergman Island, it is apparent that this is a movie made with a very particular audience in mind. You can tell that it will never crossover into pop culture or even into the conversations of casual movie fans, like a lot of indies playing in the festival circuit, do.…
This is the first post in The Cinematic Mr. Ripley, a series for the MovieThoughts category of my blog that considers moral themes in Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels and the film adaptations of those books. This post looks at Purple Noon, the 1960 French adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring Alain Delon. It…
The latest Certified Fresh movies, including Enola Holmes 2, Captain Phillips, The Bad Guys, Dolphin Tale, The Mask of Zorro, Moneyball, Notting Hill, Up in the Air.
EXPECTATIONS: Simple yet romantic survival story. REVIEW: WARNING: This review may contain heavy traces of cheese. Before I start off this review, let me just make this one thing clear. I do like romantic films. This year alone, we have great films like Their Finest, The Big Sick, Our God’s Country and Call Me By…
Gliding almost without speech down the dawn streets of a wet Paris winter, these men in trench coats and fedoras perform a ballet of crime, hoping to win and fearing to die. Some are cops and some are robbers. To smoke for them is as natural as breathing. They use guns, lies, clout, greed and nerve with the skill of a magician who no longer even thinks about the cards. They share a code of honor which is not about what side of the law they are on, but about how a man must behave to win the respect of those few others who understand the code.
Woody Allen’s 50th film, “Coup de Chance” made a pretty good impression after premiering at last year’s Venice International Film Festival and then in France a short time later. Since then it has been finding its way to screens including here in the States courtesy of MPI Media Group. It’s Allen’s first French-language feature. And…
I feel like I should start out this review by saying I was a big fan of the 2 previous A Quiet Place movies. You can read my reviews here and here. They did a great job establishing atmosphere and creating compelling characters I could breathe with for the moment. However, they are not movies…
The bluntly titled “Something in the Water” hearkens back to those good old days of perusing the horror section of my local mom-and-pop video store, carefully examining the VHS boxes of movies I’d never heard of, in search of some fun late-night entertainment. For better or worse, “Something in the Water” plays a lot like…
The Last Exorcism (2010) IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT! I COMPEL YOU BACK TO THE BOTTOMLESS PIT OF HELL WHE – Oh hello, didn’t see you there! You’ve caught me right in the middle of exorcising my fellow reviewer Ryan Fleming. He suggested this week we watch something…
Siccîn 7 is a 2024 supernatural horror film about a desperate family drawn into a dark ritual on a black moon. Preview with trailer
“Can you please just give us the Cliff Notes version, should we take our kids to see it and will we enjoy it too?” – sure, you will all have a good time, grab some popcorn safe in the knowledge that Pixar rarely fail, but that is why, whilst I liked Inside Out 2…it was…
I’m not the core audience for Despicable Me 4, but it is a bit better than I expected. You could do worse than taking your family to see it.
Deadpool & Wolverine Review | An R-Rated Laugh Riot That’s Thin on Plot but Thick on Entertainment Out of the Marvel movies, Deadpool isn’t the one where the audience anticipates a solid plot in order to be entertained. It is the fun we get because of
German actress Sandra Hüller became known to movie audiences in the West in 2016 when she co-starred as the put-upon daughter in the comedy TONI ERDMANN. The film received a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the Oscars the following year, and although it didn’t win, it did attract Hollywood’s attention and an American remake […]
Movie Review: Anatomy of a Fall
It feels like the streaming era has been really good to Martin Scorsese. No matter how many bad things can be said about streamers, they have been giving Scorsese the budget and resources to make the large scale epic films he wants to make. I really liked The Irishman when that came out and now…
Maestro (2023) is a biographical drama film from sophomore writer-director Bradley Cooper. Cooper also stars in the film as Leonard Bernstein, renowned Broadway composer, following his life and relationships, particularly with his wife Felicia (Carey Mulligan). The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival to strong reviews, and releases in theaters and on Netflix this December.…
All in all, THE HOLDOVERS is a paramount feel-good promulgator of empathy and understanding, everyone has their own problems (whether it is trimethylaminuria or possible hereditary mental disease), life is full of unexpected happenstances (whether it is a disconsolate bereavement or a seemingly promising romance going the way of the buffalo) and horrible individuals (whether…
MOVIE REVIEW! The Iron Claw (2023) Starring: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James, Holt McCallany Directed By: Sean Durkin The world of professional wrestling is not unlike the world of big budget blockbusters: there’s colorful characters, high drama, and lots of conflict. But underneath all of that bravado and high emotion, there’s a real…
