Monthly Archives: March 2024

Donnie Yen gets his ass kicked in one scene in “Polar Rescue,” titled “Sou jiu/Come Back Home” when it opened in China. And frankly, it’s not a good look for the martial arts icon, who has been more at home … Continue reading →

Alec Guinness brings a deft twinkle to G.K. Chesterton’s venerable saintly sleuth “Father Brown” in his only big screen outing as the Catholic crime solver, titled “The Detective” when it showed in the United States. And while I can’t say … Continue reading →

“My Name is Loh Kiwan” is a downbeat Korean melodrama peppered with violence and victimhood and adorned with too many trials and tribulations for its own good. Writer-director Kim Hui-jin stuffs a TV soap opera season’s worth of over-the-top challenges, … Continue reading →

“Outlaw Posse” is a scruffy, old school blaxploitation Western from Mario Van Peebles, son of iconic African American filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, who put the “Black” in blaxploitation, back in his “Sweet Sweetback’s BADASSSSS Song” day. Mario V. P. charmed … Continue reading →

“Unfriending” is a deadpan Canadian comedy with “film festival darling” engrained in its DNA. It doesn’t quite come off, but being dark and droll, it might play to the right audience, a forgiving film fest crowd willing to ignore how … Continue reading →

The coming-of-age teen sex comedy genre goes younger and supposedly edgier in “Snack Shack,” which tells the story of randy Xennials in 1991 Nebraska City, Nebraska. The follow-up to writer-director Adam Rehmeier’s quirkier “Dinner in America” is a transgressive, tedious … Continue reading →

One can appreciate Adam Sandler using his Big Deal with Netflix to try and branch out as an actor, to act in more serious films that the self-described “moron” comedies he’s churned out for decades, keeping himself, assorted family members … Continue reading →

There’s a mesmerizing tranquility to German director Wim Wenders’ homage to Japan and the cinema of Japanese icon Ozu Yasujiro. The filmmaker who gave us “Wings of Desire” and a pretty good documentary on Ozu (“Tokyo-Ga”) loses himself in a … Continue reading →