Monthly Archives: July 2024

“The Dead Don’t Hurt” is a simple revenge Western slowly teased out into rambling, meandering 129 minute saga by writer, director and star Viggo Mortensen. He and Kevin Costner must shop at the same saddlery. It can be cute, playful … Continue reading →

It’s a reflex reaction. You see an actress “putting it all out there” for a role — skin, simulated sex, violence and drug abuse. You remember how Hollywood burns through starlets, uses and misuses young actresses until many are “used … Continue reading →

“Detained” is a bloody-minded thriller of “The Usual Suspects” variety. There’s a crime scene with a lot of bodies, and somebody is going to need to explain how they got there, preferably in a series of long flashbacks. That’s the … Continue reading →

The full title of “Dance First” includes the phrase “A Life of Samuel Beckett.” They left out the word “abridged.” Because while one simply could not do better than have the great Irish actor Gabriel Byrne playing Beckett as a … Continue reading →

Scenes rarely play like “scenes” in the films of Robert Altman. They don’t so much begin, reach their point, and end. The dialogue is cluttered, non-stop, layered in around the leads. “Important” lines from the characters the story is about … Continue reading →

Say this for the Mexican action comedy “Non-Negotiable.” They pack a lot of characters, plot and “twists” into 86 minutes. An almost jaunty, populist action comedy about a presidential kidnapping, scandal, petty corruption with a whiff of police incompetence built … Continue reading →

Years of experience teach you to set your sites low for some movies. An ambitious, combat-heavy WWII RAF bio-pic with no big names in the cast, no major distributor behind it, a modest-budget film that premieres and reaches much of … Continue reading →

Crackling dialogue, bluff, brittle performances and a plot riddled with “coincidences” and saddled with clumsy, chatty villains characterize “Nightfall,” a fin de noir thriller from Jacques Tourneur. It features linebacker-in-a-suit Aldo Ray as a commercial artist fleeing two murderous bank … Continue reading →

“The Arctic Convoy” is a taut, old-fashioned World War II thriller detailing the grim realities of civilian merchant seamen sent in harm’s way to deliver supplies to the Soviet Union to ensure Nazi Germany would be fighting a two-front war … Continue reading →

Mark Mothersbaugh, of Devo and “The LEGO Movie” and scores of other film scores, did the fine electronic-flavored score for the new series “Time Bandits.” But while the opening credits are passable, in a sort of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the … Continue reading →