Month: February 2021

Movie Reviews

“To All the Boys: Always and Forever”

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”

Action

Movie Review: “Willy’s Wonderland”

“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”

Biography

Review of JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

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

Action

Sundance 2021: Prisoners of the Ghostland

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

Disney Hulu

Documentary Review: “Framing Britney Spears” on FX/Hulu

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

Drama

Movie Review: Italian tween grows up with Granny, “Alone With Her Dreams”

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 […]

Movie Review: Italian tween grows up with Granny, “Alone With Her Dreams (Picciridda – Con i piedi nella sabbia)”

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “Alice Fades Away” in this Southern Gothic thriller

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

Action

Koreans clean up Low Earth Orbit as “Space Sweepers”

“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”