Comedy

Movie Review: “The Columnist”

Ok, who hasn’t dreamed dark thoughts about some social media troll who’s made disgusting, cruel or hateful comments about something you’ve said, shared or posted? No one, right? There’s something very satisfying about the thought that some thinks-he-or-she-is-anonymous online troll realizing, with shock, that they aren’t protected from their ugly, sometimes violent opinions by “anonymity” […]

Movie Review: “The Columnist” has a REAL problem with hate mail

Comedy

Review: “Cruella”

Something really strange happened to me while I was watching “Cruella,” the latest animation to live action Disney prequel/remake. Disappointed by Disney’s recent installments in their series of nostalgia cash grabs and not impressed with the trailers for this one, I was fully prepared for “Cruella” to not be a good time. But less than […]

Review: “Cruella”

Crime

Rope (1948) Review

Time: 81 Minutes Cast: James Stewart as Rupert Cadell John Dall as Brandon Shaw Joan Chandler as Janet Walker Cedric Hardwicke as Mr. Henry Kentley Farley Granger as Phillip Morgan Constance Collier as Mrs. Anita Atwater Douglas Dick as Kenneth Lawrence Edith Evanson as Mrs. Wilson Director: Alfred Hitchcock Two young men, Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan […]

Rope (1948) Review

Crime

Dark Woods (Das Geheimnis des Totenwaldes) 2020

“Dark Woods” is a German police procedural that is less about tracking down a serial killer than about the ripple effects of random, senseless violence and the pain of not-knowing what’s happened to a loved one who simply vanishes. There’s mystery in this account of a 30 year-long German case that only dogged persistence by […]

Series Review: German cops hunt a serial killer, and a kidnap victim, in the “Dark Forest (Das Geheimnis des Totenwaldes)”

Crime

Saw V (2008) Review

Time: 92 minutes Age Rating: Torture & Sadistic Violence Cast: Tobin Bell as John Kramer Costas Mandylor as Detective Mark Hoffman Scott Patterson as Agent Peter Strahm Betsy Russell as Jill Tuck Julie Benz as Brit Meagan Good as Luba Gibbs Mark Rolston as Agent Dan Erickson Carlo Rota as Charles Director: David Hackl Although Jigsaw […]

Saw V (2008) Review

Crime

Mitchum is Marlowe in Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975)

Robert Mitchum was a high-mileage/hard-miles 57 when he took on Raymond Chandler’s iconic private eye Philip Marlowe in 1975’s “Farewell, My Lovely,” a character immortalized by Bogie in “The Big Sleep” in a story of that had been filmed twice before, in the film noir-mad 1940s. He wasn’t too old to take the part, but […]

Classic Film Review: Mitchum is Marlowe in Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975)

Amazon Prime Video

Carnival Row

 Amazon Prime          Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne   Jarred Harris   Suspense, Fantasy, Drama A serial killer is loose in Carnival Row, and the government turns a blind eye (as always) to lower class citizens. The human Rycroft Philostrate (bloom) is a detective or P.I. looking into the deaths of some fae […]

Carnival Row

Crime

Movie Review:China’s Oscar contender “Better Days”

“Better Days” is a searing indictment of bullying culture and China’s insanely intense college admissions system, all tucked into a sadly compelling romantic thriller. The added-attention of an Oscar nomination gives a welcome boost to a movie much of the world missed in late 2019, but one well worth enduring and embracing. “Enduring” because Derek […]

Movie Review: Bullying as a romantic thriller — China’s Oscar contender “Better Days”