Monthly Archives: September 2023

Imagine popping into a multiplex and diving into say, an “Avengers” or “Star Wars” movie. Imagine doing that in Papua-New Guinea or some place far removed from the “universes,” cultural tropes and long-beloved characters in those films and not having … Continue reading →

This Oct 3 release is about a couple of old farm coots and coping an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease. It looks a little lighter than that sounds.

Some decades back, I interviewed the great Texas writer Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove,” “The Last Picture Show”) at a cocktail party thrown in his honor at the University of North Dakota’s Writers Conference, which that year was focused on Western … Continue reading →

Energy, violence and a breathless pace cover some of the many sins of “Freestyle,” a Polish hip hop thriller about selling drugs to finance a record because our Polish hero “needs to be spittin’” rhymes. Amped-up, coked-out drug dealers at … Continue reading →

Yorgos Lanthimos strikes again? “A woman plotting her course to freedom!”

Jane Fonda wasn’t the star attraction, or even the prettiest actress on the screen in her third film, 1962’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” The regal French beauty Capucine was higher billed. The versatile Anne Baxter and earth mama Joanna … Continue reading →

It sometimes seemed, in the long years of trials, deflections and evasions that comprised the last days of Chile’s murderous looter and dictator Augusto Pinochet, that the monstrous bastard would never die. A “normalized” and “accepted” despot with a tidier … Continue reading →

It’s hard to work up much enthusiasm — or any at all — for “Little Jar,” a limited-cast/couple of settings COVID comedy that comes too late to cash in on “Look at the movie they got made despite restrictions” and … Continue reading →

The standard rule of thumb for films that appeal to a more mature audience is that it takes that crowd a few weeks to get around to catching up with a new movie aimed their way. Thursday night “previews” have … Continue reading →

Reshoots, delays, less Amber Heard, maybe no Aquaman at all in James Gunn’s vision for DC comics movies down the road. In any event, here’s the sequel now slated for a few days just before Christmas.