Monthly Archives: October 2021

Actor-turned-director Christian Nilsson had a great idea when he set out to do an homage to Brian DePalma’s classic political thriller “Blow Out,” itself a riff on Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Blow Up,” also a classic. The hook — that something deadly … Continue reading →

A lad’s new walking talking digital assistant has a few glitches in this cartoon, animated by start up Locksmith Animation Zach Galafianakis, Olivia Colman and Ed Helms are among the voices we hear in this 20th Century Studios release, which … Continue reading →

The slaughter of World War I is seen from the Eastern Front point of view in “The Rifleman,” a Latvian saga about that conflict and the Russian Civil War and Latvian fight for independence that followed. Documentary filmmaker Dzintars Dreibergs … Continue reading →

Hawke plays brother roles in this Nov. 19 thriller set in Rome as it faces a terrorist bombing. Ferrara hasn’t decamped from Italy, but he’s not working with his muse, Willem Dafoe, and he’s not making another indulgent navel gazing … Continue reading →

The Polish thriller “Operation Hyacinth” (“Hiacynt”) is based on an infamous piece of Communist history, Poland’s systemic police harassment, arrest, documentation and blackmail of the country’s homosexual population in the mid-1980s. If it was meant to create a database of … Continue reading →

Peter Jackson finally finished his deep dive into Beatles vault footage from their mad rush to finish “Let It Be,” the album and a TV special meant to accompany it. “Get Back” was the album’s ethos, getting the quarrelsome band … Continue reading →

A missing person, suggestions of crime and down-and-out working poor trailer-park Angelinos struggling to get by — let’s label “The Cleaner” an indie film noir and see if I can make that stick. This quirky, laid-back and downbeat drama is … Continue reading →

Well-crafted but not particularly well thought-out, “Halloween Kills” is a hot mess of a horror homage. David Gordon Green’s take on venerable slasher franchise has ambition, an attempt at intellectual heft and one of the most empathetic performances of the … Continue reading →

Scott Adkins, Ashley Green and Ryan Phillippe star in this Nov. 5 release, which the CIA and the Navy SEALS trying to avert a dirty bomb disaster. The title also refers to this being a story filmed in “one take” … Continue reading →

Looking forward to this one, mainly because of the history of the franchise and Jamie Lee and Judy Greer. Bitterly disappointed that this Australian trailer wasn’t dubbed into…Australian.