Monthly Archives: July 2022

This debut indie comedy got a little attention at Cannes, and picked up by A24. Looks cute. Comes our way Aug. 24, which is that notorious late August dumping ground for movies with low expectations.

He made a few mostly-forgotten films, but clay animation pioneer Will Vinton brought stop-motion animation back into vogue with his famous “California Raisins” TV commercials in the ’80s. Anyway, his role in bringing back the art form that was used … Continue reading →

There’s an adjustment period facing the average viewer for those first few minutes of Billy Porter’s high school trans-romance “Anything’s Possible.” It’s not unlike what one experiences diving into a film from a foreign culture, in a genre you can’t … Continue reading →

Call me old fashioned, but the last thing I want in a sex comedy is “timid” and “coy.” “How to Please a Woman” is an airless, laughless romantic “romp” from down under about a woman who takes over a failed … Continue reading →

My heart goes out to any aspiring filmmaker who takes a shot at making a Western with no money. All horror takes is a bit of makeup, some fake blood and — in the case of a cheap zombie movie … Continue reading →

Adrift, unable to hold a job, maladjusted and arrested in her development. Maybe what Audrey needs is for somebody to adopt her. This film festival darling isn’t the comedy which that set up suggests. It hunts at something more existential … Continue reading →

The Netherland in Ranch Country design suggested by the trailers make this feel like yet another Jordan Peele genre-transcending horror “event, which “Get Out” most certainly was and “Us” never quite managed to be. The streaming series “Lovecraft Country” has … Continue reading →

Throwing in a mewling infant is a bit much. Granted, I was far enough into the sentimental Spanish coming-of-age melodrama that I thought, “You can’t do a knockoff of ‘Stand By Me’ without a body,” when lo and behold one … Continue reading →

Katie Holmes‘ “Alone Together” is the latest, almost certainly not the last of the “pandemic makes strange bedfellows” dramas and romances inspired by and filmed during lockdown. Tenderly-conceived, tastefully-directed, handsomely-mounted and prestigiously-cast, its a drama that runs up against the … Continue reading →

Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence had “Mama’s Family,” Tyler Perry had “Madea.” Brit comic actress Catherine Tate’s “Nan,” a character from her self-titled sketch comedy series, is pitched somewhere in between, a crude and coarse vulgarian who must be pushing … Continue reading →