Monthly Archives: September 2019

Years ago, I had a lunch interview with the journalist/screenwriter Mark Boal (“The Hurt Locker”) as he passed through town promoting his second film with Kathryn Bigelow, the Hunt for Bin Laden epic “Zero Dark Thirty.” The conversation wrapped up … Continue reading →

The comic Jim Gaffigan takes a deep dive into the dark side with “American Dreamer,” an almost relentlessly downbeat character study in despair. It’s a thriller with no hero, just a funnyman who tosses aside his amusing baggage even when … Continue reading →

A “big city” cop comes home to visit her dying father and is drawn into a mystery that dates from her high school days in “HELLmington,” a moody, well-acted but generally inconsequential thriller in the occult subgenre. If it holds … Continue reading →

A big hit at Cannes an October release from A24. Was this the performance that made Pattinson an apt choice as the next brooding Dark Knight?

Laurence Fishburne is a prison warden haunted by the past, forced to deal with flashbacks to his past sins as his infamous place of work is about to be imploded in “Imprisoned,” a tale set and filmed in Puerto Rico. … Continue reading →

Ewan M. is “Danny doesn’t live here, Mrs. Torrance,” all grown up. Rebecca Ferguson, Jacob Tremblay, Cliff Curtis and Bruce Greenwood are in this Nov. 8 thriller.

Not a bad opening weekend. Not a holiday weekend, not a “summer release,” almost three freaking hours long. The $91 million “It 2” pulled only looks bad if you compare it to “It Chapter 1,” which pulled in over $123 … Continue reading →

Oscar winner Brie Larson, Tim Blake Nelson a Andrene Watts-Hammond are the other faces in this Oscar contender about justice down South. It’s based on a true story and could be every bit as moving as its trailer.

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 →

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 →