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 […]
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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 […]
Right until the end, Tobias Lindholm’s six-part search for the truth behind journalist Kim Wall’s death is TV designed to work against the genre’s usual rhythms.
‘The Investigation’: HBO’s Danish Drama Is as Unglamorous as TV True Crime Gets
FIRST COW is one of those films that drops you into another time and every small detail adds to its palpable authenticity. Nobody films slow and beautiful stories like Kelly Reichardt. Cookie (John Magaro) is a man trying to get by in a harsh time, meeting a fellow survivor, a fellow man without place (Orion […]
Review in Brief: First Cow (2019/20)
A local heroine, high school hoops star back in the down, is now a police detective in this seven episode series. Jean Smart plays her mom. A murder mystery, something new from Kate? Count me present.
Kate Winslet’s new HBO Series — “Mare of Easttown” — a first look
Synchronic is the latest from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and it’s a strange fever dream of a film. We start with a couple taking a drug that appears to transport them into an alternative universe, before shifting to a pair of paramedics, Steve Denube, played by Anthony Mackie, and Dennis Dannelly, played by Jamie […]
Benson & Moorhead: Synchronic (2021)
With the rise of the streaming services, Netflix, the major contender in this arena, has certainly “stepped up their game” in trying to amass viewers; exploring the ideas of original content in both in TV series, limited mini-series, and feature films. In the film category, […]
Outside the Wire (2021) Review
Dolemite is My Name (2019) Released:October 25th, 2019 Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama Director: Craig Brewer Writers: Scott Alexander, Larry Karraszewski Cast: Eddie Murphy, Keegan-Michael Key, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Titus Burgess, Kodi Smit-McPhee, T.I., Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock Opening Thoughts: I really didn’t know what to expect from this film. I had […]
Delayed Review: Dolemite is My Name (2019)
Animated series about washed up former actor Bojack Horseman (Will Arnett) living in “Hollywoo” and trying to battle his demons at the same time. This is a show I wasn’t keen on to begin with and I vaguely remember the promo for the first series. The idea of animals as humans didn’t really appeal to […]
Director Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah” tells the story of the events leading up to the murder of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) in a raid on his apartment by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Chicago Police Department, and the FBI. It’s told primarily through the perspective of […]
Review: “Judas and the Black Messiah”
