Author Archives: Roger Moore

In the movies, the path to “slow” is a precarious one. Such roles can be awards bait, but in these more enlightened times, playing a character described as such is walking a minefield between cute and insensitive, patronizing and simply … Continue reading →

The tulip mania of the modern art market gets a pretty thorough going over in “The Price of Everything.” Nathaniel Kahn’s collected interviews with artists, hype-driven dealers, well-heeled collectors and art historians and visits to Sotheby’s and the Frieze Art … Continue reading →

Absurdism on the screen is an acquired taste reliant perhaps more than other genres on the viewer being in the mood for something screwy beyond measure. It can be wearing, or invigorating, novel or intentionally trite, populated by Pythonesque eccentrics … Continue reading →

Decades of young women reluctant to identify themselves as “feminist” is explained in just a moment, when artist and feminist Judy Chicago remembers her college years in the ’60s. She’d say something about women’s rights back then, and she’d get … Continue reading →

“Brampton’s Own” is a wistful baseball romance that makes its home in the “impossible dream” futility of life in the minor leagues. It doesn’t offer many surprises, but a good cast and a few moments make it a perfectly watchable … Continue reading →

Actually, actor Leon Bridges plays the famous jazz composer, singer and poet, in “First Man.” It’s in the “Why are we spending all this money on space travel?” montage. Back in my public radio jazz program hosting days, I’d play … Continue reading →

There’s a famous quote from the great French filmmmaker Jean Renoir, an expat who spent World War II in Hollywood trying to make his brand of important, politically allegorical films in “The Dream Factory.” All Hollywood needs, he said at … Continue reading →

An American enigma comes poetically and touchingly to life in “First Man,” a nervy account of the American space program and the astronaut years of Neil Armstrong, culminating with “One small step for man.” Ryan Gosling, like Sam Shepard’s Chuck … Continue reading →

What kind of lowlife would bet on Little League baseball games? Not the Little League World Series. Surely Vegas has action on that. I’m talking local sandlot ball, small town, setting “the line” and all that? If you’ve seen any … Continue reading →

Veronica, “Ronnie” to her friends, sees dead people. But that’s OK. Everybody does. Ever since “The Event.” And in “a world where the dead walk among the living,” there are rules. “They can’t alter their imagery…They can’t affect our natural world.” … Continue reading →