Hollywood loves a remake. Sometimes it’s a successful foreign film recast with English-speaking celebrities. Sometimes it’s a decent story that just didn’t work the first time around. Most of the time, it’s a hollow-minded cash-grab by a studio rejiggering its intellectual property. But now and then, it’s a filmmaker of regard taking a bonafide classic […]
2021. I have missed, as always, missed a lot of amazing cinema this year. But it’s not just my fault this time, it’s down to the pandemic we have all been, and still are, living in. The cinema is my safe space but it took a while for me to feel safe going back. My […]
Inspired by early interactions with his infant son, writer and director Mike Mills tells a contemplative tale with latest feature C’mon C’mon. The tender drama centres around Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix), a journalist of sorts travelling state to state conducting philosophical interviews with the youth of today about their future. When his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffman) […]
Adam McKay’s new film “Don’t Look Up”, which was released on Netflix on Christmas Eve after being released at theaters early in this month, attempts to laugh about how absurd and incorrigible we can be in front of one big global disaster, but it comes to resort to a series of cheap and superficial laughs […]
Don’t Look Up (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): An uneven disaster comedy
HBO documentary “The Forever Prisoner” is often sobering and chilling in its calm but blistering presentation on what the US government allowed to happen in the name of War on Terror. While it did not surprise or shock you much if you are familiar with its main subjects, the documentary is still captivating as providing […]
The Forever Prisoner (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): It was torture indeed
Title – The French Dispatch (2021) Director – Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket) Cast – Bill Murray, Benicio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Jeffrey Wright, Timothee Chalamet, Owen Wilson Plot – A collection of stories that form integral parts of an American newspaper set in a French city. “All great beauties withhold their deepest secrets” Review […]
Film Review – The French Dispatch (2021)
Denis Villeneuve delivers with a rich, dense, and layered adaption—executed with incredible performances throughout. With mythology and world-building on par with The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, Dune is cinematic and momentous. Considered among many circles as one of the hardest stories to adapt, Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic has been attempted in the past. None, however, come […]
DUNE – A Cinematic and Momentous Sci-Fi Epic
Drive My Car is director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film […]
DRIVE MY CAR: sublime and powerful
Spider-Man: No Way Home effortlessly combines high-stakes, incredible action sequences, and a darker, emotional core to become the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The following review is spoiler-free. Spider-Man: Way Home is third and final film of Marvel’s “Home” trilogy, directly following the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home and continuing the […]
Spider-Man: No Way Home – Review | The Best MCU Movie
The Matrix Resurrections is a strong, meta-driven return to the iconic franchise. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss effortlessly return their roles while Lana Wachowski brings a bold artistic vision. The fourth film in the Matrix franchise, The Matrix Resurrections brings back many familiar faces. Reeves and Moss are back as Neo and Trinity, while Yahya […]
The Matrix Resurrections – Review
A ghost story for Christmas, and something timeless for your festive viewing; Orson Welles’ Return to Glennascaul is only 23 minutes long, which makes it a pleasure rather than a chore. Shot during a break on his troubled production of Othello, it’s billed as ‘a story told in Dublin’ but takes the form of a […]
There’ve been a few attempts, over the decades, to rewrite the history of Billy Wilder’s 1964 clunker “Kiss Me, Stupid.” It’s “underrated” thanks to a winning Dean Martin as “Dino” (Dean Martin) performance, worth re-assessing because of a risque late scene Wilder was forced to edit out, somehow worthy of elevation because of its satiric […]
Classic Film Review: Billy Wilder’s “Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)” reconsidered
A boy growing up on Long Island seeks out father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar.
Movie Review: “The Tender Bar” Is A Nice, Family-Centered But Ultimately Mundane Film
While the world seems to be spinning out of control, Hollywood seems to reach further and further back into the past for ideas and inspiration; writer and director Aaron Sorkin feels that comedy icon Lucille Ball is the most urgent subject that he could possibly address in 2021. Ball’s heyday was in the 1950’s, and…
When I first became interested in classic film, I’d stalk the forums on tcm.com in an attempt to seek out movies to watch. Anytime the subject of tearjerkers came up, it seemed like the first and most discussed movie was a film that would likely have otherwise flown under my radar: the 1941 drama “Penny Serenade,” directed […]
Holiday Classics: “Penny Serenade” (1941)
“Luuuuuucy… I’m Home.” Probably one of the most timeless, classic … that is still uttered today. But behind the scenes of not only the “I Love Lucy” show itself, but the marriage between Lucy and Desi itself, was a very tumultuous relationship. This is the story of one week in the lives of these two […]
REVIEW: “BEING THE RICARDOS” (2021) Amazon Studios
Nightmare Alley is Guillermo del Toro’s followup to his surprise Oscar winner The Shape of Water. It serves as both a remake of the 1947 film noir of the same name and a new adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel from a year earlier, with the beloved filmmaker delivering […]
Not every person is equipped to become a parent. It’s a duty of a lifetime that must be carried out without flaws. Yes, no one is perfect. But the one who considers themselves to be one can easily become distanced from their own flesh and […]
Film Review: “The Lost Daughter” (2021)
Antoine Fuqua’s Infinite is a sci-fi action flick that imagines a world of reincarnated souls where a group of people called Infinites have the ability to remember their past lives. Within this group, there are two subgroups; the “believers,” who view their ability as a gift, and “nihilists” […]
Zola (2020) Y’all wanna hear a story? Perhaps this is simply what happens when you turn a Twitter thread into a movie. Zola, the film’s origin lies in a 148-tweet thread posted by Zola the person — A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King — in October 2015, detailing a wild, chaotic road trip from Detroit, Michigan to Tampa, […]