Yearly Archives: 2022

Tyler Perry turns his melodramatic eye on the recent past for his latest, a jazz-and-blues in 1940s Georgia tale titled “A Jazzman’s Blues.” It’s about race relations under Jim Crow, when miscegenation was a multi-syllable word even the trashiest rednecks … Continue reading →

How cool is it that Sir Anthony Hopkins is “47 years” sober, that he’s 85, and that he shares his New Year’s Eve birthday (TODAY) with Sir Ben Kingsley? This message reminds us that the Great Drunks of British Acting … Continue reading →

Well, if it took a Henry Selick stop-motion animated horror comedy to put Key and Peele tother again on the screen, we’ll take it. Netflix wrote the checks and the director of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Coraline,” co-adapting a … Continue reading →

Every film buff has her or his own interpretation of what “Altmanesque” means. It’s the torrent of words, the hyper-naturalistic dialogue that has everybody talking at once, leaving it to the viewer — with a little help from the sound … Continue reading →

You’d think, in this still-pandemic-limited climate of fewer theatrical releases making it to theaters, and the slow return to “normalcy” as Hollywood and other corners of film culture gear back up, concocting a “ten best films” list would get easier. … Continue reading →

“A Night at the Kindergarten” is a dark dramedy about a committee of Polish parents gathering to consider a few matters concerning their semi-exclusive school, and rehearse and prep for the next night’s Christmas pageant, which they will perform for … Continue reading →

The script is bad enough to make one pity the actresses saddled with role-playing this dog, seven women who might have found themselves envying the chap cast to play the unspeaking corpse. Not that their emotionally-dead, enervated performances are wholly … Continue reading →

British editor-turned-director David Lean is most widely-known for his epics. Starting with “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” on through to “Dr. Zhivago” and “A Passage to India,” he gave the cinema films of scale, scope and … Continue reading →

And just like that, Gerard Butler’s back to making B and C movies? Sure, he’s got the imaginatively-titled thriller “Plane” due out in January, and not everything Lionsgate releases is a B-movie. But is this it? Is “Last Seen Alive” … Continue reading →

Historical dramas are as much a reflection of their times as those they’re bringing back to life on the screen. That’s one reason why the many versions of the life and martyrdom of Joan of Arc play like harsh judgements … Continue reading →