Monthly Archives: November 2021

It’s more familiar to film buffs than it is to the generation that still watches old TV Westerns on assorted cable, streaming and Grit TV channels. And to us, it’s attained cult status, a “Prisoner” or “Black Adder” but beloved … Continue reading →

The “inciting incident” in the Latvian drama “The Pit (Bedre)” is so chilling that we judge the kid committing it instantly and in the harshest terms. There’s a younger child, a little girl, literally in a pit, and he’s doing … Continue reading →

Boy, you think you know all the “madcap” Hollywood farces, and then something like 1951’s “Behave Yourself!” pops up, begging to differ. It’s got Farley Granger (“Strangers on a Train,” “Rope”), cast against type, Shelley Winters playing comedy and every … Continue reading →

At last Netflix releases a family holiday movie worth watching this year. I was beginning to lose hope. “A Boy Called Christmas” continues the streamer’s run of good luck with tales that reset the Christmas myth, finding new origin stories … Continue reading →

We tend to lump all of the musicals of Hollywood’s Golden Age into one warm memory. But of course there were lesser lights — forgotten gems — and big budget blunders, like “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” A … Continue reading →

A pull-out-all-the-cliches and throw in a few on-the-nose new ones script leaves Halle Berry’s directing debut, “Bruised,” a split decision. As a showcase for the fittest 55 year-old in the cinema, one who masters fight choreography and is (mostly) convincing … Continue reading →

This one doesn’t go for laughs or pathos (“Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” was featured in a more moving earlier trailer). But Christmas Day, all the kids will still want to sing along with…Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett … Continue reading →

The end, when it comes, is never pretty. But can it be a thing of beauty? That’s an unspoken premise of “So Late So Soon,” a portrait of two kind of cute/kind of quarrelsome Chicago artists as they close in … Continue reading →

“Hobbit” filmmaker Peter Jackson invites his fellow “kids” into the candy store of Beatles archives for “The Beatles: Get Back,” a film compiled from the mountains of documentary footage shot as the band scrambled to make an album in London … Continue reading →

Well, if nothing else, Vanessa Hudgens seems to be having a blast with these “Princess Switch” holiday movies for Netflix. As the original and sequels have rolled out, she’s been called on to not just play a Chicago baker who … Continue reading →