Monthly Archives: February 2023

This Aussie indie film is about a teen with Down Syndrome who doesn’t let social expectations or her brother’s concerns keep her from meeting her ambitions. Hope the patrons of the Willie Jones Public Library appreciate “Poppy.” Movie Nation, spreading … Continue reading →

“Race” never figured in the comedies, thrillers and dramas of the great Austrian-American filmmaker Billy Wilder. You can wade through his entire 50 year career and wonder why you never see a Black face. The rest of his industry in … Continue reading →

“True Spirit” is a plucky feel-good tale of a teen girl’s quest to be the youngest to ever sail “Around Alone.” Directed and acted with a light touch, packed with bubbly pop music montages and finished off with a dollop … Continue reading →

Stumbling across this lightly-amusing comedy on Roku, there are certain “truths” that are, as Mr. Jefferson would have noted, “self-evident.” “We Are Not Alone” plays like a sitcom pilot, which it almost certainly is, a 90 minute set up for … Continue reading →

It’s funny to think about how late Hollywood was in figuring out Walter Matthau was a natural comic actor. For the first couple of decades of his film and TV career, nobody thought to let him go for a laugh. … Continue reading →

“Millennium Bugs” is a murky look back at Y2K Eve, a comedy that struggles to find laughs in end-of-the-90s fashions, slang and panic over what the world might look like when computers glitch as the year 2000 begins. It’s a … Continue reading →

I’ve developed a passion for Spanish police procedurals. Or rather, Netflix’s “What you should try next” algorithm has. And I’m OK with that, as it’s a genre the Spanish cinema has a good handle on, and these “Around the World … Continue reading →

As you can tell from her photograph, actress Nell Barlow exudes Big Mary Elizabeth Winstead energy in “Sweetheart,” a light British rom-com about coming of age when you’re gay, confused and in your teens. It’s a pity her character April, … Continue reading →

There are dramatic moments, stretches of action and snatches of pithy dialogue that suggest there’s a half-decent thriller inside the ungainly, frustrating mess of “Among the Beasts.” But it goes wrong, right from the start, in an unnecessary, uninteresting story … Continue reading →

Sure, you can give your movie a rapacious Viking prologue to a modern day werewolf story. But it’s not until the new-to-town cop meets the grizzled, loony one-armed werewolf hunter whose name is Lars and not Quint, and the young … Continue reading →