⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. One of the best descriptions of being a nomad is a wanderer. A person who does not set boundaries for himself – he or she goes beyond it. Why have one place called home when there’s opportunity to be living in every part of the country. That does not […]
Film Review: “Nomadland” (2020)
The Farrelly brothers arguably peaked with There’s Something About Mary, a caustic slice of anti-80s nostalgia that marked the precise moment when grossout comedy started to give way to cringe comedy. We start with a parody of the 80s fetish for the 50s – a bucolic neighbourhood, where Ted Stroehman, played by Ben Stiller, is […]
Farrelly: There’s Something About Mary (1998)
Melissa McCarthy’s collaborations with writer-director and husband Ben Falcone have been pretty brutal. Falcone has directed McCarthy in four previous movies. Of those, 2018’s abysmal “Life of the Party” has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score at 38%. Yes I know, review aggregators aren’t infallible and they don’t always represent the quality of a movie. I […]
REVIEW: “Thunder Force” (2021)
It took a while, but the long-delayed psychological thriller “The Woman in the Window” is finally set to see the light of day. Originally owned by 20th Century Fox, the rights then went to Disney following their acquisition of Fox. Now Netflix is set to release the film next month. It’s directed by Joe Wright […]
First Glance: “The Woman in the Window”
Disney was the big winner overall, powered by “Soul’s” five awards and “The Mandalorian’s” three.
VES Awards 2021: Netflix’s ‘The Midnight Sky’ and ‘Mank’ Take Top VFX Honors
Idris Elba is an actor I’ve always admired. Whether he’s speaking with power and passion as Nelson Mandela or declaring himself Black Superman in “Hobbs & Shaw”. He has always possessed both leading man charisma and supporting role restraint. He uses a little of both in the new Netflix drama “Concrete Cowboy”, directed by Ricky […]
REVIEW: “Concrete Cowboy” (2021)
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. Every parent wants his or her child to succeed; be a good child, law obedient, get an education, find a well-paid job, get married, have children and live happily ever after. Cole’s (Caleb McLaughlin) mother, struggling in Detroit with her son, is fed up with all the issues he […]
Film Review: “Concrete Cowboy”
Sometimes a movie’s title says it all. That’s definitely the case with “Godzilla vs. Kong”, the fourth film in Legendary Entertainment’s MonsterVerse following two “Godzilla” movies and 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island”. It should go without saying, but you don’t enter into something called “Godzilla vs. Kong” with expectations of an emotionally layered and deeply nuanced […]
REVIEW: “Godzilla vs Kong” (2021)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Director – Milos Forman (Man On the Moon) Cast – Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Douriff, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, Christopher Lloyd Plot – Troublemaker and criminal R.P McMurphy (Nicholson) is transported to a mental facility run by Nurse Ratched (Fletcher) where he is to be evaluated […]
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 […]
Young love is tested by illness and honesty issues in “Caught by a Wave,” a scenic Italian romance set against a sailing backdrop. The leads are pretty and the locales romantic, but the scenario is generic and the pacing funereal in this dry-eyed weeper of rehab and regattas. Sailing camp on the isle of Favignana […]
Netflixable? Teen Italians, in love and facing tragedy — “Caught by a Wave”
A husband’s violent reaction becomes the talk of the neighborhood when he catches his cheating wife in the act. I noticed this film was on Prime and decided to watch it. Also the premise sounded interesting. This film marked the film debut of Beulah Bondi. This film is a bit of a curio as although […]
Two siblings and three of their friends en route to visit their grandfather’s grave in Texas end up falling victim to a family of cannibalistic psychopaths and must survive the terrors of Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his family. This is one of those cornerstones of horror that you’re always aware of even if you’ve never […]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
If Hollywood is going to give screenwriting Oscar nominations to “Borat” movies, brace yourself for pranks, pranks and more pranks pictures. “Bad Trip” is more at the “Bad Grandpa” with Johnny Knoxville end of the practical joke pictures spectrum. A little edge, a few confrontations with angry rural America, waaaay too many bodily function/bodily fluid […]
Netflixable? A “Bad Trip” that goes a prank or two too far
It may be tempting to write “#Alive” off as just another zombie movie. In a way that’s what it is. This South Korean survival thriller from director and co-writer Cho Il-hyung doesn’t bring anything particularly new and it certainly doesn’t reinvent the horror sub-genre. At the same time, it’s hard not to enjoy its nimble […]
A young woman (Lene Kqiku) awakes drugged and restrained in a strange house, but her captor may be more than he appears. I encountered this short film on Amazon Prime. The premise sounded interesting and with a runtime of only 7.5 I was intrigued. It does a good job of giving the film an undercurrent […]
Following the enormous success of “Hamilton” what better time for Warner Brothers to release “In the Heights”. This musical drama is an adaptation of a Tony-winning stage play by Quiara Alegría Hudes and “Hamilton” mastermind Lin-Manuel Miranda. Jon M. Chu of “Crazy Rich Asians” fame directs the film from a screenplay written by Hudes with […]
First Glance: “In the Heights”
I stumbled into “detectorists” when it hit Netflix some years back. But the streaming service had just the first two seasons of it, and while I binged it and absolutely adored it, I never got around to writing about it. Coming back to the series, after a third season of it brought things to a […]
Series Review: Return to “detectorists”
Steven Soderbergh’s latest film may not have been shot on an iPhone, but it cut down production fuss in other ways. Over three-quarters of the screenplay was shot on the Queen Mary 2, in a crossing from New York to London, and the cast almost entirely improvised their lines, taking their cues from a rough […]
Soderbergh: Let Them All Talk (2020)
So what if I told you Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer were set to play a crime-fighting superhero duo? Well get ready because that’s exactly what we’re getting in the upcoming action comedy “Thunder Force”. Streaming giant Netflix has dropped the first trailer and I have to say it looks a lot like what you […]