Action

Movie Review: Danish, Dark, Bloody and…Sweet? “Riders of Justice”

Imagine the nerds from “The Big Bang Theory” stumbling into the plot of “Taken,” or pretty much any Liam Neeson out-for-revenge thriller. Now imagine them Danish. That’s “Riders of Justice,” the dark, bloody, sweet and sometimes hilarious comic thriller from Anders Thomas Jensen. He scripted the Oscar-winning “In a Better World,” which had similar messaging […]

Movie Review: Danish, Dark, Bloody and…Sweet? “Riders of Justice”

Action

Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Episode One Review

Quick Thoughts about Episode One – Star Wars: The Bad Batch is a welcome addition to the Star Wars animated world, and is refreshingly unique as it follows Clone Force 99, a group of defectively born, and battle-hardened clones throughout the post-Clone Wars universe.  The official synopsis for the show is “Members of a unique […]

Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Episode One 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)

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “The Sleepless” and Lonely Strangers meet in Brooklyn’s Wee Hours

“The Sleepless” is drama and romance at its most elemental and charming — just two insomniacs, meeting and chatting on a long walk through the empty streets of Brooklyn at dawn. Sometimes cute, occasionally touching and generally charming, it won’t go down as one of the great “just a conversation” films. The dialogue doesn’t paint […]

Movie Review: “The Sleepless” and Lonely Strangers meet in Brooklyn’s Wee Hours

Biography

Movie Review: Walken vs Monsanto, “Percy vs. Goliath”

Truth be told, Christopher Walken has always worn his pants grandpa-high, his hats a little out-of-date.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”

Documentary

Classic Documentary Review: “The New Deal for Artists” (1976)

“The New Deal for Artists” was a mid-70s documentary for public television that gathered many of the folks who benefited from Franklin Roosevelt’s assorted New Deal work projects to talk about how that Great Depression “put people back to work” program benefited themselves, American art and America in general. From New York theater types to […]

Classic Documentary Review: “The New Deal for Artists” (1976)

Biography

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)

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)

Comedy

Movie Review: A Polish teen in Ireland, “I Never Cry”

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”

Action

REVIEW: “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”

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”