Monthly Archives: May 2020

Sometimes, I swear, it’s like the creators of these limited-run series are paid per minute of screen time that they convince the streamer to give them to tell their story. A woman learns that her beloved brother — missing for … Continue reading →

  The unalloyed delight in dropping into “Tommy” 45 years after it cinemas is hearing and seeing Jack Nicholson sing (respectably on key) and vamp his way through “Go to the Mirror!” Only Ken Russell (“The Music Lovers,” “Altered States,” … Continue reading →

Writer-director Karen Maine’s first gained notice with the short film that became the feature “Obvious Child,” a comedy about an abortion. So a movie about a Catholic schoolgirl’s intellectual and sexual awakening during the AOL era is pretty tame stuff, … Continue reading →

Actress/actor turned director Lynn Shelton, whose “Humpday,” “Your Sister’s Sister” and “Laggies” helped define to chatty/semi-improvised subgenre called “mumblecore” by some, has died. A blood illness, undisclosed, took her at a far-too-young 54. That’s her with “Mumblecore” Godfather Mark Duplass, … Continue reading →

We’ve probably lost our ability to be shocked by allegations of sexual abuse that turn out to be true. The American statistics are staggering — one our of four girls are molested before they turn 18, one out of six … Continue reading →

“The Vast of Night” is a mystery wrapped in an enigma and boxed up in an homage to “The Twilight Zone.” It’s a beautiful, gloomy and nostalgic film whose “The truth is OUT there” answers may be obvious, and whose … Continue reading →

Everybody’s got a story of when we first recognized the addiction — usually other people’s and not our own. A concert where phone alerts interrupted the music, church, classrooms overrun with teens unable to keep the screen out of sight. … Continue reading →

Suicides that might be…murders? Shawn Ashmore, Daniella Alonso, Gary Cole and Lin Shaye are the names in the cast. June 12.  

Hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and mescaline, the active ingredient in Peyote, aren’t addictive. They don’t kill people. And in studies, only now being renewed after decades of criminalization, they show promise in helping with anxiety, depression and other forms … Continue reading →

“Proximity” is an alien abduction thriller that’s more about the time travel. The look, the paranoid vibe and the music scream “late ’80s,” and seeing as how it’s from a guy whose visual effects credits include “Tron: Legacy” and “Stranger … Continue reading →