Monthly Archives: July 2018

None of the three wide releases opening this weekend moved the Metacritic meter well into positive (over 60%) territory. “Mixed” reviews for “Equalizer 2,” “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” (“Mamma Mia 2”) and “Unfriended: The Dark Web” (“Unfriended 2”) … Continue reading →

Denzel Washington may be in the Liam Neeson “man with particular skills” stage of his leading man carer, older, not so much “getting the girl” anymore as “getting his man. But charisma and old-fashioned talent, what we glibly file under … Continue reading →

A tip of the top hat to Stephen Susco, writer-director of the squirm-inducing horror sequel “Unfriended: Dark Web.”  He’s engineered a real-time Facebook-era tale of tech-savvy yet hapless young people hacked, tormented and terrorized when one of their number comes across … Continue reading →

What tea leaves is Jennifer Lopez reading that parked her in a “Working Girl” style comedy about “faking it until you make it?” Answered my own question there, didn’t I? “Second Act” is about people who missed out on education … Continue reading →

The first trailer was cryptic, which is probably why traffic to my eight year old  review of the documentary that inspired it, “Marwen” exploded over the past month. “Welcome to Marwen” is about an artist, badly hurt in a mugging, who … Continue reading →

Spanish filmmaker  José Díaz Martínez wanted some time to himself, to reflect on his long-dead brother Tino and get away from the modern world. And his wife and two kids as well, he doesn’t hasten to add. So he set … Continue reading →

It’s got to be exhausting being Bobbito Garcia, the self-styled “cultural orchestrator” at the nexus of New York’s sneaker, hoops and hip hop culture. He’s probably hard on friends, too. He must wear them out, after a while. Hell, I’m … Continue reading →

This is the form of storytelling a big chunk of the cinema/cable/streaming audience loves these days, interconnecting threads, shared characters, etc. Not a fan of that, myself. But “Split” was fraught, I tellya, just fraught! Shyamalan’s comeback has been humbling … Continue reading →

Nobody takes “class war” more seriously than the Brits. A nation that misnames its most exclusive institutions “public,” where accent, political party and the very newspaper one reads seems set for life at birth, it has to. And in acknowledging … Continue reading →

Top drawer supporting cast for this summer romantic drama — parents played by Judy Greer and Luke Wilson, a sage by Donald Sutherland. Blake Cooper, Liana Liberato and Danielle Rose Russell are the young leads. An intriguing trailer that packs … Continue reading →