Monthly Archives: September 2021

“Memoirs of a Black Girl” is an earnest micro-budget indie melodrama, a “film festival film” of earnest intent if modest means. If the ambition to punch above its weight were enough, it might pass muster. But unpolished performances, incessant and … Continue reading →

Perhaps your first reaction upon stumbling onto “The Assignment” was the same as mine. “How did THIS trainwreck escape my notice?” in 2016-17 when it was released? But right there in the opening credits, we see that “Warriors” and “48 … Continue reading →

Just a friendly reminder that Hulu’s amusing “true crime” podcast fans turned sleuths comedy “Only Murders in the Building” is wrapping up its first season, and it’s a hoot and you should be watching. There is more to streaming TeeVee … Continue reading →

British novelist Adam Nevill’s London-set novel “No One Gets Out Alive” is reimagined as an immigrant’s horrors of home delivered in a spooky rooming house in Cleveland in this Netflix adaptation. Visual effects specialist Santiago Menghini makes his feature directing … Continue reading →

There is such a thing as making your movie “too topical. “Implanted” is a paranoid thriller about you-know-whats-controlling people’s thoughts and actions. And it is set in 2023, “three years after the global pandemic.” The pandemic isn’t over yet, and … Continue reading →

Call it James Bond’s greatest hit. That’ll do. Daniel Craig makes his long-planned exit from his long tenure as Agent 007 a graceful one in “No Time to Die,” a sometimes jokey, often sentimental and occasionally dark outing in the … Continue reading →

For the love of all that’s holy, LET BRITNEY GO. Until this happens, until the conservatorship seemingly run for the benefit of Britney Spears‘ family, until their threats of “taking away” her kids, until the lawyer she’s selected and hired … Continue reading →

Somber, sedate, downbeat, thoughtful — all words that apply to the Manhattan Project movie memoir “Adventures of a Mathematician,” a Polish-German co-production filmed in English. Sadly, they sugar-coat how drab and dull this drama about one Polish emigre’s experience of … Continue reading →

The voice is fractured, fragile and intimate — “plaintive, earthy and insinuating” an early Village Voice critic called it. Bob Dylan got even closer to the mark by stating the obvious about Karen Dalton and who she was plainly imitating … Continue reading →