Monthly Archives: December 2020

If you know your submarine thrillers, from “The Enemy Below” and “Das Boot” to “The Hunt for Red October,” you know this signature moment repeated in such movies from WWII onward. It’s the sweaty, suspenseful near silence as everyone waits … Continue reading →

That delicate English rose Carey Mulligan smears her lipstick, slurs her words and stuffs a heaping helping of brimstone and treacle into your Christmas stocking with “Promising Young Woman,” a twisty and twisted tale of personal torment and revenge. Torment … Continue reading →

A January release on Netflix, a laugh out loud trailer, which may have all the laughs in it. Love that Nic Cage. He owns a few of these words. Samuel L. owns the rest.

You don’t think much about “character arc” in a movie until you stumble across a movie that forgets to tidy that detail up. In “Fisherman’s Friends,” the reliable character actor Daniel Mays plays Londoner and musical talent manager Danny, the … Continue reading →

Topic has become my go-to source for international TV series worth bingeing through in a year when mere American series just won’t do. Their latest offering, debuting on Dec. 24, is the Swedish dramedy “Love Me,” twelve episodes that take … Continue reading →

Oh temptress smart phone, is there nothing you can’t ruin, given half a chance? Globe-trotting filmmaker Thomas Balmès has been filming in the Himalayas, Bhutan and other high plateaus of Asia since “Babies” (2010). But with “Happiness,” he found a … Continue reading →

They’ve been called “dead teenager movies” ever since Siskel and Ebert gave them that label. And they follow the same formula, the same “rules” the world over — even in Poland. “Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight,” or “W lesie … Continue reading →

He’s pulled this together from the 56 hours of “unseen” Beatles studio footage. Yeah, I thought we’d seen it all, too. Apparently not. It’s all footage shot around the recording, rehearsing and build-up to the “rooftop” concert so famed in … Continue reading →

Here’s a fun martial arts Buddhist parable from the late pre-Jackie Chan era, a 1979 jewel that’s been newly-restored in ways that preserve the look, sound and feel of the age of the times, a moment in time caught amid … Continue reading →

Homelessness has always been a part of the Christmas story, ever since there was “no room at the inn.” Something about the holiday lends itself to the pathos of those with no family to turn to, no secure place to … Continue reading →