Author Archives: rogerinorlando

Well, thank Gru for the Minions, anyway. Without the little yellow sidekicks, staging a “West Side Story” prison break, singing a gibberish “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” or “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” … Continue reading →

In “My Journey Through French Cinema,” the filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier becomes — for three hours and ten minutes — that favorite college professor, the one with thousands of stories, anecdotes passed on second or third hand. “Journey” is a long … Continue reading →

Yes, there’s another one. Rebel Wilson needs the cash, Anna Kenrick needs the relevance. Or is it the other way around? Christmas. Not much in the trailer other than Rebel’s fat-joke hat.

Sofia Coppola doesn’t acknowledge the earlier Clint Eastwood/Don Siegel film of “The Beguiled,” or even mention the Thomas Cullinan source novel in the credits. “Written and directed by Sofia Coppola.” Perhaps she never read it, or saw the earlier movie. … Continue reading →

Every musical is built around songs of aspiration, “dream songs” in which a character can’t express emotions and hopes in mere words. She or he just has to sing them, maybe do a little dance as she does. Think of … Continue reading →

A few words, then, in praise of Kirsten Lane, music consultant on films from “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” to “Love Actually” and “Bridget Jones’s Baby” and now the musically overloaded “Baby Driver.” Music is an integral part … Continue reading →

You don’t hear about or see the ramifications of the “Fountain Valley massacre” when you visit St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. But there are ghosts there, if you recognize what you’re seeing. One of the less developed islands, … Continue reading →

Nobody was gung-ho about digging into the Transformers toybox again. Not Michael Bay, not Mark Wahlberg or the few other folks who could be called recurring characters. So let’s assume everybody got paid, and HOW, to concoct the worst movie … Continue reading →

The symbolic becomes the literal in João Pedro Rodrigues’s “The Ornithologist,” a Biblical allegory set in the wilds of Portugal. The title character (Paul Hamy) is a man of science, trained to study birds and their behavior.  He has an accident on … Continue reading →

There’s trouble on the stand-alone “Han Solo” prequel at Lucasfilms. As in, cartoon directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “The LEGO Movie”) delivered a film that Lucasfilm isn’t happy with it. The all-important “tone” … Continue reading →