Monthly Archives: November 2019

That’s what is missing from the Variety analysis linked below. The notion that the audience is not merely tiring of “tired” franchises, but that something broader might be in play. A year filled with “unoriginals” which have flopped —“Shaft,” “Terminator: … Continue reading →

Disney has been pitching this sequel as more an action adventure cartoon than a musical. But of course there’s music in”Elsa: The Next Mission.” Let’s hope it’s a dazzler. Hasn’t been the most epic fall for animation on the big … Continue reading →

Desperation collides with duty in “When Lambs Become Lions,” a docudrama set in the wildlife parks of Northern Kenya. That’s where poachers and National Reserve Game Rangers play for keeps in their struggle over Africa’s last elephants. Jon Kasbe’s film … Continue reading →

She didn’t take up a camera until she was 40, and became, she says, “the first woman (news) photographer in Italy.” But it’s where Letizia Battaglia took up her art and trade and who she pointed her camera at that … Continue reading →

The opening moments of “After the Murder of Albert Lima” are where the confusion begins. A Tampa area personal trainer is talking to a couple living on an island in the Caribbean. He puts them on speaker phone. He’s asking … Continue reading →

If you’re a fan of historical biographies on the big screen, you realize that they’re rare enough to make you wince when one goes awry. So no other filmmaker will, in all likelihood, ever get a shot at “getting it … Continue reading →

Filmmaker Alex Gibney’s latest deep dive into complex and troubling history is another “How we got here” saga. The director of “Taxi to the Dark Side,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” “Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of … Continue reading →

  “Blackbear” opens as a not-quite-convincing Marine snipers captured in Afghanistan thriller and transitions to a melodramatic mixed martial arts “I gotta fight to pay for my buddy’s VA care” tale. Taliban fighters (dressed as ISIS, but in the Shati-Kot … Continue reading →

Maxine Trump is a documentary filmmaker who filmed “To Kid or Not to Kid” to justify, in her mind and perhaps ours, her decision to remain childless. “Well,” you think, “surely that’s her own business, and who does she have … Continue reading →

They’re not wrong, of course, this comic “men’s movement” podcaster and the conservative activist and writer who call their tour, and the movie about it, “No Safe Spaces.” Even if they’re inclined to cherry pick their examples. Even if they … Continue reading →