Yearly Archives: 2018

If you thought “Paddington” was as adorable as a kids’ movie about a talking bear could get, you were mistaken. “Paddington 2” sees your “adorable” and raises it with an “inutterably charming,” an Oscar winner and a couple of other … Continue reading →

  Catching a movie after its hype has peaked is always an exercise in “What’d others see in this?” “Mudbound,” far-removed from Sundance, “The Shape of Water” extracted from its fanboy fawnathon can feel empty, thin and lacking. Remove the … Continue reading →

You’ve seen snippets of these videos on the internet, on “Craziest Car Crashes” cable TV shows. And just a few moments of any one of them tells most of us “No, there’s no way to drive safely and sanely in … Continue reading →

Just the trailer for this January release is gonzo enough to make me stop typing and put in a call to Oscilloscope Laboratories to be sure to get a screener of this one. Got it! My review of “The Road … Continue reading →

God help me, but I found the climax to “Insidious: The Last Key” to be quite moving. For a horror sequel, anyway. Sequel-prequel in this case. Sure, much of what’s come before that, an hour and 40ish minutes of backstory, … Continue reading →

The WGA Nominations can be expected to honor movies (and TV series, movies, etc.) that have a writerly quality — to the dialogue, intricate story structure, character construction. So while there are some glaring omissions, putting “Get Out,” “Lady Bird,” … Continue reading →

It was hard to root for Tonya Harding back when the blue collar “redneck” skater was battling the petite princesses of figure skating in the late ’80s and early ’90s. She was more “girl next door” than her prettier contemporaries, … Continue reading →

Begin with first principles. Dito Montiel is America’s Uwe Boll, an inexplicable phenomenon who continues to work, always gets distribution for his movies, seems to hypnotize big names into making those movies, ensuring that distribution comes to pass. And the … Continue reading →

Let’s start the new year with a few low-budget laughs at the expense of the zeitgeist, shall we? “Crazy Famous” is another “wacky gang from the mental hospital” fish out of water comedy in the “Dream Team” mold. And even … Continue reading →