Monthly Archives: September 2019

Netflixable? Chapelle courts controversy in “Sticks & Stones” standup special

I watch the signature stand-up specials on Netflix and elsewhere, but I rarely bother to review them because they aren’t movies — for the most part. Not in the sense of “Eddie Murphy: Raw” or the various Richard Pryor concert … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review — Morgan Spurlock gets after Big Chicken with “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken”

It’s the movie that could make you fall in love with Morgan Spurlock, all over again. With “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” the quixotic documentarian returns to his first, best destiny — investigating fast food and the “myth” that … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review – “Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements”

A child’s hearing-loss is “corrected” by cochlear implants, leading to him wanting to perform Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata. The boy’s deaf grandfather faces the perils of old age, adding new maladies to his lifelong one. And the boy’s filmmaker-mother ponders them … Continue reading →

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Movie Preview, “Wrinkles The Clown” shows Pennywise how it’s done

This is an October release about a real life clown hired to show up and scare the kids — grownups, too. And it looks revelatory, in terms of why folks are scared of people in facepaint and wigs.

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Movie Preview: Imogen Poots copes with “Black Christmas”

Sorority vengeance fantasy. Love that Imogen. The fact that she Poots is irrelevant.

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Movie Review: “It Chapter 2” becomes “The Never Ending Story”

What’s that old saying about too much of a (mediocre) thing? That’s the second half of Stephen King’s “It” saga, an everything horrific but the kitchen sink thriller destined to be a blockbuster, treated — by virtue of its excessive … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? A Middle School reunion goes very French, and very wrong in “Back to School/La Grande Classe”

For those of us who have longed for a “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” meets “Wedding Crashers” in French, Netflix is here to fill that void. The streaming service has had decent luck with French farces (“I Am Not … Continue reading →

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Movie Preview: African American life, love, hope and trauma, “Waves”

Two young couples, with patriarch Sterling K. Brown holding the family together as it is tested by life these days. It’s from A24, so chances are it’s very good.

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Movie Review: “Hot for teacher” is no longer “cute in “Scarborough,” or anywhere else

Let’s get the “icky” part out of the way up front. “Scarborough” is a drama about two teachers showing up at the same British coastal resort town, off-season from the looks of it, for a weekend with their student-lovers. They … Continue reading →

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Movie Preview: “JoJo Rabbit” will be unlike anything else at the movies this fall

This full trailer for Taika Waititi’s “JoJo Rabbit” has whimsy (“What We Do in the Shadows”), scope (“Thor: Ragnorak”) and darkness, heart and pathos. It’s like a Wes Anderson movie about Nazis, without a grand hotel. And a German cover … Continue reading →

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