![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() The Commitments retains its charm some 25 years after it premiered, even as Ireland and the music world have changed dramatically in the intervening quarter-century. That charm stems from a can’t-miss combination of sweet soul music, quirky characters coming together in a band, and some real se…
WikChip Video
Irish take on sweet soul music
|
||||||
![]() Why don’t slaves revolt? In the South two centuries ago, in the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust or even in Asia now? The Birth of a Nation helps answer that complicated question. Unfortunately the movie itself is complicated. Its creators apparently raped a woman while college students in 19…
WikChip Image
Nate Parker's movie: engaging & affec...
|
||||||
![]() Middle-America clashes with Silicon Valley as much as a dad clashes with a future son-in-law in Why Him? This makes for a funny movie, with lots of LOLs and a side-splitting scene or two. Yet, it would have been funnier with a stronger cast, starting with a better comedic lead than James Franco…
WikChip Image
James Franco owes Keegan-Michael Key
|
||||||
![]() Bruce Springsteen songs drive Blinded by the Light, a helluva good concept, well played. That said, the film itself is somewhat cloying, more fanzine than Rolling Stone, albeit elevated by the Boss’s oeuvre. The movie does a great job with some Springsteen songs, projecting the lyrics on wal…
WikChip Video
Cast & creators talk about Bruce
|
||||||
![]() What happens when a legendary detective drops in on the murder investigation of a major mystery writer? Rian Johnson’s latest complicated cinematic confection – Knives Out – is what happens. This Agatha Christy homage is loads of fun for nearly two hours. Unfortunately, it’s a 2 hour 10 minute … |
||||||
![]() Call me crazy, but I find The Philadelphia Story inferior to Bringing Up Baby, its contemporaneous cousin. Katherine Hepburn’s comeback movie – the picture that cemented her status as a hit-making star – is a very fine romcom and an understandable member of seven American Film Institute all-t…
WikChip Image
Starburst: Grant, Hepburn, Stewart
|
||||||
![]() I find self-loathing shmucks more annoying than interesting. So Barney’s Version – about a dissolute TV exec played by the redoubtable Paul Giamatti – surprised me by deepening into an affecting and intriguing drama in its third reel. Based on Mordecai Richler’s final novel, its literary pedig…
WikChip Video
Solid acting enlivens a solid novel
|
||||||
![]() De Niro and Norton’s moviestar masterclass combined with austerely beautiful filmmaking elevates a formulaic story that trades heavily in caricature. Often darkly funny, occasionally LOL so, Stone surmounts its insufficient title by proving itself an involving experience.
WikChip Image
Moviestar Masterclass: De Niro & Norton
|
||||||
![]() A smug couple fights spectacularly over their narcissistic disappointments, with their immature worldview presented as the final word on family-centered suburban existence. Melodramatic, occasionally quite funny, flawlessly performed, supremely well made, Rev. Road is worth seeing if family tr…
WikChip Image
The classic novel behind the movie.
|
||||||
![]() 42 gives us a part of baseball history that fans and non-fans alike should see. As much as it is a decent baseball story, it is an even better story about American history. This glimpse into how Jackie Robinson made his way from a Negro league to the Brooklyn Dodgers was more complex than a simpl… |