Monthly Archives: November 2024

Movie Review: Spain’s Oscar hopes ride on “Saturn Return (Segundo Premio)” a bio pic of the indie band Los Planetas

Posted on November 30, 2024 by Roger Moore

You don’t have to know the history and love the music of Spanish indie rock icons Los Planetas (“The Planets”) to connect with the new bio-pic about these ’90s fixtures of Spanish “alternative rock.” But it helps. “Saturn Return” is … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Carney, Tomlin, Killings and a Missing Cat — “The Late Show” (1977)

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Roger Moore

The golden age of film noir — cynical, sinister and shadowy thrillers about crime and the unchanging nature of human criminality — was the 1940s and ’50s, when black and white cinema still ruled. The genre never really went away, … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: An Old West Sheriff sees Dead People — “Ghosts of Red Ridge”

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Roger Moore

“Ghosts of Red Ridge” is a low-budget Western that tries to be a ghost story. It’s not anything to write home about in either genre. There’s some nice lived-in detail in the locations, the dusty, dirty costumes and almost-colorful characters. … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? Santa’s helpers take it off — “The Merry Gentlemen”

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Roger Moore

Netflix’s conquest of “The Hallmark Holiday Movie” as a genre continues with “The Merry Gentlemen,” a snowy tale of Santa season stripping to save the family bar. These movies follow a fairly strict formula, and this one — scripted by … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Whigham and Coon, a Hitman and his “Victim,” may never get to “Lake George”

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Roger Moore

An ex-con is arm-twisted into solving “a little problem that needs to go away” — a mobster’s ex-girlfriend — in “Lake George,” a dark, dry and funny “hit-man” thriller where the “hit-man” keeps insisting “I don’t do that kind of … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Finnish Metalheads aim for more face-melting on a “Heavier Trip”

Posted on November 26, 2024 by Roger Moore

Well, Hell. Now I’ve got to go back and catch “Heavy Trip,” the Finnish metal band comedy from 2018, the movie that inspired “Heavier Trip.” “Heavy Trip” is on Tubi. Do your homework before catching the sequel in cinemas! It’s … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Looking for Lean Laughs from “Blithe Spirit” (1945)

Posted on November 26, 2024 by Roger Moore

The shifting sands of editor-turned-director David Lean‘s career took him through early adaptations of Noël Coward scripts, included some definitive adaptations of Charles Dickens and eventually settled on the sweeping epics which is he best known for today — “Bridge … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? British doctors invent IVF, facing protests and attacks as they do — “Joy: The Birth of IVF”

Posted on November 25, 2024 by Roger Moore

Well-cast, well-acted, sentimental and plucky, “Joy: The Birth of IVF” is an encouragingly upbeat account of the labors, trials and attacks endured by the intrepid British team that set out to find “a cure for childlessness.” It’s a story of … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Hitchcock’s first take on the dainty and deadly “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934)

Posted on November 25, 2024 by Roger Moore

The earliest signs that the filmmaker would one day to be branded as “The Master of Suspense” in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent classic “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.” But it took the advent of sound, and several … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? Denzel’s sons open up August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson”

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Roger Moore

Denzel Washington furthers his efforts to keep his promise to “do right by” the late, playwright August Wilson by producing another film of one of Wilson’s plays, this one he assigned to his sons, actor John David Washington to star … Continue reading →

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