Date Night dabbles in suburban marriage matters, police corruption, and the art of locking your front bumper to the front bumper of a New York taxi cab in the midst of a car chase. A crazy mixed bag in category and appeal, but with Steven Carell and Tina Fey doing the work, the result is […]
My Valentine’s Day Pick: Date Night (2010)
Writer-director Shatara Michelle Ford’s debut feature is as sober a treatment of the “date rape” drug experience as the cinema has ever shown us. “Test Pattern” captures the “how,” immerses us in the “now” and shows us the lives brought to a standstill by the experience and the soul-crushing systemic failures of the aftermath. What […]
Movie Review: A romance shaken by “date rape” — “Test Pattern”
A lot of thrillers begin with or feature a prison-bus break-out as a signature scene — “48 Hrs.” and “The Fugitive,” for instance. But here’s one that’s all about the break-out, or break-in depending on your point of view. “Below Zero (Bajocero)” is a simple, brutal and harrowing Spanish thriller about an assault on a […]
Netflixable? A prison bus thriller with a “Below Zero (Bajocero)” chill
Far from the best horror film, and far from the best slasher, there is something classically endearing about My Bloody Valentine.
Horrific Inquiry: MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981)
It’d be hard to overstate just how likeable Netflix’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” movies. Cute cast, realistic (if affluent) situations, upbeat messaging and first love-affirming, precisely what a teen rom com should be. And if Netflix wants to wring the life out of the “franchise,” even that doesn’t ding that likability. The […]
Netflixable? “To All the Boys: Always and Forever”
“Yeah, I’ll do your little movie,” the pitch meeting ended, probably a short one, probably handled by phone. But the Oscar winning actor had one rider he insisted on in his contract. “I’ll do it so long as I don’t have to talk.” Say this for the quixotic career of Nicolas Cage, Academy Award winner, […]
Movie Review: Let’s turn Nic Cage loose in “Willy’s Wonderland”
DANIEL KALUUYA as Chairman Fred Hampton, ASHTON SANDERS as Jimmy Palmer, ALGEE SMITH as Jake Winters, DOMINIQUE THORNE as Judy Harmon and LAKEITH STANFIELD as Bill O’Neal in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. A film is always a harrowing watch when based on a real-life person […]
MMT Quick Review of JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
A part of me would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the crazy idea for “Spontaneous” was pitched to the studio heads. “It’s an adaptation of a book about high school students who inexplicably begin exploding in class. And I mean literally blowing up, spraying blood all over their classmates […]
Prisoners of the Ghostland is a collaboration between America’s most bonkers actor, Nicolas Cage, and Japanese auteur Sion Sono, known for grotesque violence, extreme eroticism, and surreal imagery. I’m not the biggest fan of Nic Cage’s recent reincarnation as a b-movie cartoon, but I thought this combination was made in movie heaven and couldn’t wait to […]
Sundance 2021: Prisoners of the Ghostland
When all this “Free Britney” hysteria started, and every time it’s kicked up since, I’ve shaken my head at the conundrum her unique situation seems to present. Is Britney Spears still with us because of the draconian conservatorship her family imposed on her in the middle of her head-shaving, lashing-out hospitalizations of 2007-8? Maybe you’re […]
Documentary Review: “Framing Britney Spears” on FX/Hulu
Really bad decisions and horror movies go together like peanut butter and jelly. There are countless examples: reading the blood-inked Necronomicon, attempting to tame a zombie, reaching down to pull the mask off a downed serial killer, saying Candyman’s name five times to a mirror. In the upcoming “The Devil Below” a group of amateur […]
First Glance: “The Devil Below”
We meet them all at a tearful Italian dockside farewell. A family is disembarking for France, looking for better opportunities than their tiny coastal village can provide them. Mamma is crying, but little Lucia is inconsolable. Mother and father area leaving, and taking her kid brother with them. Tweenage Lucia (Marta Castiglia) insists, “I’m all […]
Long Story Short (2021) Love … Blink and you’ll miss it. A romantic comedy that centers around a time anomaly may not be the most original idea to pursue. Indeed, audiences have seen the conceit in the classic film Groundhog Day (1993) and more recently in Richard Curtis’ About Time (2013), but Josh Lawson’s sophomore […]
It’s hard to believe it’s been thirty-three years since Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall let loose in “Coming to America”. That John Landis comedy was a surprise hit that ended up being 1998’s third highest grossing film at the US box office. Over the years it has maintained its legions of fans mainly due to […]
First Glance: “Coming 2 America”
During the peak of Christmas season watching, my friend Jen told me about a little show she loved called Ted Lasso. I’m normally not much of a TV person so I put it in the back of my mind and didn’t watch it until this last week. I needed a break from the heady nature […]
[REVIEW] ‘TED LASSO’ or a Smile Means a Lot
Short running time feature dramas have an obligation to get down to business, to not squander screen time on clutter. There’s no room for extraneous characters, scenes jammed in that don’t advance the plot, needlessly obscuring relationships when the occasional Big Reveal is mystery enough. “Alice Fades Away” is a Southern Gothic thriller with abuse […]
Movie Review: “Alice Fades Away” in this Southern Gothic thriller
Keep Rolling by Man Lim-chung will open 16th Osaka Asian Film Festival (Japan) which will take place on screen from March 5th – 14th and online from February 28th – March 20th (selected films from previous editions).
16th Osaka Asian Film Festival – Opening Film 2021
“Space Sweepers” is what K-Pop looks like in sci-fi movie form. A not-quite-amusing mashup of “Valerian” and “The Fifth Element,” “Blade Runner” and “Elysium,” it’s the sugariest eye candy Netflix has ever produced. It’s gorgeous, and if you’re all about immersing yourself in a futuristic, apocalyptic, grimy-lived in world, then sit back and soak in […]
Netflixable? Koreans clean up Low Earth Orbit as “Space Sweepers”
Iranian-American director Kourosh Ahari delivers a striking feature film debut with “The Night”, a cerebral slice of psychological horror that impresses as much with its style as it does with its ability to get under your skin. Set within the creepy confines of an old history-rich hotel, “The Night” does what so many other good […]
We’re at that time of year in the UK right now where the rain falls pretty much every day and the sun is nowhere to be seen after 4PM. I don’t know about you, but those kinds of conditions always draw me towards the darker side of cinema. Now isn’t the time for a fluffy […]