Monthly Archives: June 2024

World War II movies made during the war were rarely as bluff and blunt as this Robert Mitchum, Burgess Meredith star vehicle. William Wellman’s film celebrated the infantryman’s champion, celebrated journalist Ernie Pyle. Meredith plays the Scripps New Service grunts-eye-view … Continue reading →

Thank heavens for little girls! A good Thursday afternoon and evening was swept away by a huge Friday as Pixar’s latest sequel, “Inside Out 2,” managed a $60 million opening “day,” setting up a $145 million or so opening weekend. … Continue reading →

Nicely evocative of the period, a little promise in the set up. Good looking trailer, Great Title.

Write a good script. Keep costs low by focusing on characters, situations and witty dialogue, not effects, lots of settings and stunts. Look for a world to show us that the movies don’t often visit. With a little luck, good … Continue reading →

The first important and well known Maori filmmaker, Lee Tamahori (“Once Were Warriors”)  gives us this period piece about an outsider, a preacher, out of his depth in an alien land which Europe is set on conquering and colonizing. Pearce, a … Continue reading →

Pixar’s “Inside Out” was an Oscar-winning “return to form” for the pioneering CGI animation house back in 2015, a film that found heart in attempting to visualize the emotions that guide us through childhood and make us the adults we … Continue reading →

Ving Rhames as a cop, Ron Perlman as the mayor of beantown, with Alfred Molina, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jack Harlow and Paul Walter Hauser.   Two desperate guys too old to be leading “a criminal conspiracy” like this, one of them in … Continue reading →

This 1950s period piece looks chilling, heartbreaking and uplifting. I can’t easily find any reference to the history this film may be remembering. Maori reform school? Something broader that took in “problem” girls from any race and class? And “cured” … Continue reading →

Everybody has the same idea, cinematically, all at once. “IF” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” and “Imaginary” and now a Netflix anime story about an imaginary…Roger? Do tell? Looks lovely. Kid friendly. And possibly insipid. July 7.

The debut feature of Spanish filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren is an evocative immersion in a place, avocations of that place, in family and trying to figure out how one fits in all that. “20,000 Species of Bees” grabs you on … Continue reading →