Monthly Archives: June 2023

Classic Film Review: A Benchmark “Heist” (2001) picture, courtesy of David Mamet

Film fanatics don’t need an excuse to re-watch classic films, some of them over and over again across the decades from when we first encountered them. But if you’re a critic, one reason you do it is to check back … Continue reading

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Netflixable? Can these two gorgeous actors “Make Me Believe” they could fall in love?

Two grannies try to throw together their good-looking-but-still-single grandkids in “Make Me Believe,” a seriously bland, barely comic rom-com from Turkey. It’s a formula film that stumbles badly when it strays from the formula. But it has three stand-out features … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Duvall becomes an Icon, “Tender Mercies” (1983)

We were prepped for Robert Duvall’s Big Moment for a decade before it happened. From “The Godfather” (1972) through “Network” (1976), “The Great Santini” (1979), “Apocalypse Now” (1979) and “True Confessions” (1981), people who knew acting and film scholars with … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Stylish Twee that’s Oxygen free –“Asteroid City”

If a “twee” falls in the woods, would anyone hear it? “Asteroid City” is the latest from the Tsar of Twee, Wes Anderson. It’s an all-star, pull-out-all-the-stops “comedy” that wrestles existentialism, Group Theatre, “The Twilight Zone,” 1950s paranoia and 1950s … Continue reading

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Movie Review: “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken” releases The Boredom

Dreamworks cleverly timed the release of “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken,” to follow Disney’s live action “Little Mermaid” remake into theaters and into the hearts of parents and children everywhere. OK, maybe not. A movie in which mermaids are vain, murderously … Continue reading

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Movie Preview’ A Coen Brother and an all-star cast get wrapped up with “Drive Away Dolls”

Ask anybody appearing in this violent Ethan Coen road picture romp and they’ll tell you. Things go to hell in a hurry when you’re Tallahassee bound. Sept. 23 is this comedy drops.

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Movie Preview: “Landscape With Invisible Hand”

Aliens pay to watch Humans be human and fall in love. Sounds like pretty much half the Internet. Only Fans etc. This oddity, based on a YA novel I don’t know, features Tiffany Haddish as the adult in the room. … Continue reading

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Sat. AM at the Office

You know what they used to say Katzenberg was King (OK, dauphin) of Burbank. “If you don’t come in Saturday don’t bother showing up for work Sunday.” Not a huge turnout for this kiddie preview of “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken.” … Continue reading

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Documentary Review: Raising the Alarm about “The Youtube Effect”

What was the last thing you watched on Youtube? I use it to browse for movie trailers, to track down “lost” concert performances, archived moments of history, condensed versions of college basketball games, famous bits of sports history. An obscure … Continue reading

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Netflixable? Those Spanish lovebirds are back, “Through My Window: Across the Sea”

Now that Netflix has turned its popular “horny teens” melodrama “Through My Window” into a franchise, only one question remains. Will the the filmmakers have the cojones to bust these two lovebirds up? For good? “Through My Window: Across the … Continue reading

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