Yearly Archives: 2023

“Godzilla Minus One” is an ambitious reset of the famed Japanese movie monster, a reboot of the franchise and the character introduced in the 1950s as an allegory of Japanese victimhood in in the nuclear age. Writer-director and effects supervisor … Continue reading →

A first trailer that has exposition/back story, the cinema’s “It Girl” Anya Taylor-Joy, and a WHOLE lot of stuff we’ve seen in other Mad Max movies. I mean, a lot. Looks very good and all. But will it show us … Continue reading →

“In Your Dreams” is a shiny but drab Turkish romantic fantasy about two people who “dream” they wake up married, have a child and lives together, and spend much of their time together trying to figure out how this mystery … Continue reading →

Just another portrait of a German family, carrying on with life and work as World War II and “The Final Solution” roil around them. But this is the family of Rudolf Höss, and he and his know that the “solution” … Continue reading →

Simmer down, now. This derivative, dumb and ditzy body switch comedy that ups the “Freaky Friday,” “13 Going on 30” and “18 Again” ante by serving up a whole “Family Switch” is harmless. No, it’s not the least bit original. … Continue reading →

In light of the mockery of “Black Trauma Porn” in “American Fiction,” it’s hard to see the Simon Steuri drama “How I Learned to Fly” as anything but that. A downbeat story of two parentless, soon-to-be homeless siblings struggling to … Continue reading →

Multiple generations celebrated Henry Winkler’s late life Emmy Award for his performance as a bad actor turned bad acting teacher in Bill Hader’s hitman dramedy “Barry” on HBO. The guy had been a short, strutting TV icon in the ’70s, … Continue reading →

What a maddening, convoluted and bizarrely complex comic thriller “I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me” is. Maybe it’s the passive “hero,” the muddled morass this Mexican college student in Barcelona finds himself trapped in, the holes in the narrative … Continue reading →

Like Elvis, Nicolas Cage is a pop culture figure who undergoes a revival every decade or so as a new generation rediscovers him, or new contemporaries find fresh reasons to appreciate the wonders of this sometimes forlorn icon of “out … Continue reading →

Beautifully-cast and well-acted, handsomely-mounted and comically topical, “American Fiction” strikes a precise blow at publishing culture, stereotypes of The Black Experience in America, expectations of The Reading Public and just what “they” let the African American “us” write about, sell … Continue reading →