Truth be told, Christopher Walken has always worn his pants grandpa-high, his hats a little out-of-date. And he’s always grown a mean goatee, even in his silvery “legend of the cinema” years. So it’s no stretch thinking of him as a grandfatherly Saskatchewan canola farmer getting his back up when pushed around by Big Ag […]
Movie Review: Walken vs Monsanto, “Percy vs. Goliath”
NEON is one of the most compelling distributors of our day. A few days back they dropped a trailer for what looks to be another fascinating part of their catalog. “New Order” is the latest film from visionary writer-director Michael Franco. This dystopian thriller looks to have a biting relevance and an unflinchingly brutal perspective […]
The struggle against the government. So as you can probably guess, this is about Billie Holiday (Andra Day). The feds don’t like her singing her song “Strange Fruit” since it’s about lynching. You can’t arrest someone for singing a song, so they try to bring her down for drug addiction. This is her story. Now, […]
Silencing a Song – The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)
I always like to have a variety in this blind spot series, so for April I decided to watch the 1967 romantic comedy Two for the Road. As a huge Audrey Hepburn fan this is one I had heard about but never seen and was excited to check off my list. It’s interesting because this […]
Blind Spot 64: Two for the Road
The phrase “sullen teen” doesn’t know borders and has symptoms one can recognize anywhere on Earth. The frown is there just to break up the monotony of the omnipresent scowl. “Please” and “thank you” are the hardest words in any language to master. Smoking? Sure. But only if it infuriates adults. And even those who […]
Movie Review: A Polish teen in Ireland, “I Never Cry”
Just so you know where I’m coming from, Captain America has always been my favorite Marvel superhero and not just during his run in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Long before Marvel Studios started raking in billions of dollars at the box office, I was enthusiastically following Captain America’s comic book adventures, both as the head […]
REVIEW: “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”
An exciting first trailer as dropped for the upcoming Netflix survival thriller “Oxygen”. It comes from director Alexandre Aja whose last movie was the surprisingly entertaining “Crawl”. You know, the one about a father and daughter trapped inside their flooded home by killer alligators during a Category 5 hurricane. On paper it sounded ludicrous. But […]
Avast, landlubbers, today’s movie selection deals with the rarely-seen topic of sea monsters! But before you lay out your harpoons and start double-tracking the vocals on your sea-shanties, this is a Spanish art-film about sea-monsters on the Mubi channel, so don’t expect 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea shenanigans. Lois Patiño’s film feels like what would […]
With About Endlessness, Roy Andersson once again weaves together short vignettes that uncover the intricacy and vulnerability of the human condition.
ABOUT ENDLESSNESS: Roy Andersson’s Latest Is A Splendid Existential Work
Hi folks and welcome to the The Friday Film Club where both myself and Elwood will be highlighting a film which we feel is worth checking out. At the same time we would love to hear your own selections whether you’re choosing to just name them in the comments section or join us in arguing […]
Friday Film Club: Jojo Rabbit (2019) & Better Days (2019)
All over Istanbul, entrepreneurial scavengers pull junk carts, filling the canvas bags on those carts with recyclable cans, liquor bottles and especially cardboard. A lot of them are orphans, the street children of the city who grew up on this work, running carts for a go-between who pays them for their collections and sells those […]
Netflixable? An over-the-top Turkish “Oliver Twist,” “Paper Lives”
Philadelphia (1993) Released: January 14th, 1994 Genre: Drama Director: Jonathan Demme Writers: Ron Nyswaner Cast: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Some spoilers do apply, but I try to keep the best parts of this film for you to witness Opening Thoughts: This film has long been respected as an incredible movie. A cut above the rest […]
Movie Review: Philadelphia (1993)
This movie most probably the most irritating movie in history for my nation. The movie, midnight Express is 1978 drama film based on Bill Hayes’s non-fictional book released in 1977, directed by Alan Parker and written by Oliver Stone who wrote the screenplay of this movie after he came back from Vietnam. The movie tells […]
When Sea of Love was released in 1989 Al Pacino hadn’t been in a film for four years – the longest gap in his career to date. His last film, Revolution, had also been a box-office bomb, meaning the American public hadn’t seen him in a prestigious role since Scarface in 1983. That makes Sea […]
There’s not a lot about Burhan Qurbani’s updating of “Berlin Alexanderplatz” that declares itself “adapted from one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.” It’s stately and long — nearly three hours. But Rainer Werner Fassbender’s definitive 1980 version, for German TV, ran for over 15 hours and was shown in theaters over multiple […]
Movie Review: Updating a classic — “Berlin Alexanderplatz”
When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited. This is a film that had always been on the edge of my awareness especially as reviews came up when the film […]
Hi folks and welcome to the The Friday Film Club where both myself and Elwood will be highlighting a film which we feel is worth checking out. At the same time we would love to hear your own selections whether you’re choosing to just name them in the comments section or join us in arguing […]
Friday Film Club: Baby Driver (2017) & Tramps (2016)
The new (at least in the States) Norwegian disaster movie “The Tunnel” opens by dropping a few interesting facts that adds some perspective to what we are about to see. We learn that there are 1100 tunnels throughout Norway, most without emergency exits or safety rooms. The title cards go on to say that since […]
Mads Mikkelsen? Sold! That’s all I needed to be interested in the upcoming film “Riders of Justice”. This Danish action-black comedy mix comes from writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen who previously worked with Mikkelsen on the underrated Western “The Salvation” and the astutely titled “Men & Chicken”. With “Riders” Jensen looks to be pulling from both […]
First Glance: “Riders of Justice”
The difficulties of aging. So this is about an elderly man (Anthony Hopkins). His daughter (Olivia Colman) tries to help him as he succumbs to dementia, but he is stubborn and set in his ways. Paranoia kicks in as his situation begins to make less and less sense to him. Now, this was the last […]
Hanging by a Thread – The Father (2020)
