Yearly Archives: 2023

A melancholy Chinese romance of love-unconfessed and much else left unsaid, writer-director Luyi Zhang’s “Yanagawa” takes its title from its Japanese setting. But that title, like the film’s “love triangle that might be a quadrangle,” is somewhat ironic. The canal-laced … Continue reading →

“Marlowe” is a vamp, a bunch of 60somethings playacting hardboiled 40somethings. I’m OK with that, for obvious reasons. The light isn’t right. This is the first filmed-version of Raymond Chandler’s famed LA gumshoe shot in Barcelona and Dublin, which explains … Continue reading →

Disney and director Rob Marshall give us Halle Bailey “Under the Sea,” and the cackle of one Melissa McCarthy as Ursula… May 26.

Your daily dose of weird? Recreating the meeting of two infamous “bad boys,” just before filming “Going South” together. A bit of a goof starring Jamie Costa doing the Jack Drawl, and Sandy Danto as Belushi in full “Samurai Co-Star” … Continue reading →

There’s a difference “cute” and “cutesy.” But until the Mexican road comedy “All the Places (A todas partes),” I’d never tried to split hairs between “cute-ish” and cutesy. It’s about two semi-estranged siblings who mend fences by taking a cross-country … Continue reading →

June 9. A Porsche Transformer. Yay.

In Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK,” Donald Sutherland played a character only identified as “X,” the “explainer” who downloads most of the suspect government and government officials’ actions in the days surrounding the Kennedy Assassination in 1963. It’s a strange … Continue reading →

Superhero movies have gone all in on “universe building” of late, that “Avatar” model that pushes the notion “If we show them strange, ‘new’ and wondrous places, they will come.” So the latest “Ant-Man” is basically “‘Avatar’ with Ants…and some … Continue reading →

At some point, as a romantic comedy is failing right before your eyes, you settle for “at least it’s not offensive.” “At Midnight” is the mildest R-rated rom-com on record, a tame and tepid affair pairing up a couple of … Continue reading →

This Miramax/STX production changed hands and will be released by Lionsgate on March 3.My Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza and Hugh and Guy friends and fans, it could be fun. Should be fun. But as it’s been in the can … Continue reading →