Author Archives: Roger Moore

A boiling point summer in American race relations becomes a tipping point in American history in “Detroit,” Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s incendiary epic about the 1967 riots that reveal so much about the country we live in today. The … Continue reading →

“Kidnap” jams us into a minivan — without seatbelts — with Halle Berry as she plays a frantic mom chasing the rednecks who snatched her little boy. It’s a dopey but pulse-pounding B-movie that limits itself to that one task … Continue reading →

Funny story, I had a small town relative asking me if I’d seen this Halle Berry movie, “Kidnap,” a month or so back. She’d watched it at home. Some neighbors out in the sticks have assorted streaming services that they … Continue reading →

Playwright turned writer-director Neil LaBute works inside the Hollywood system, more often than not these days. He was show runner for the Netflix series “Van Helsing,” and many of his recent films have been studio pictures — “Lakeview Terrace,””The Wicker … Continue reading →

Here’s just a hint of what happens when you turn a top-flight director, “Black Swan” maestro Darren Aronofsky — and two Oscar winners (Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem) loose on the horror genre. Can “Mother!” survive the inevitable build-up of expectations … Continue reading →

A best-seller some years back told us “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” Bit of a stretch, but there’s plenty of evidence that a lot of Western culture and more to the point Christian culture was preserved in the monasteries of … Continue reading →

The hard-living, grizzled playwright, actor and director Sam Shepard has died. Complications of Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to the New York Times. He was 73. His plays — “True West,” “Fool for Love” and “Buried Child” among them — won … Continue reading →

He’s best known for his acrid breakthrough film, “In the Company of Men.” But Neil LaBute’s made a career out of telling difficult truths about the human condition and human cruelty. “The Shape of Things,” “”Dirty Weekend,” “The Wicker Man” … Continue reading →

The most critically-acclaimed movie of the summer, a pulse pounding historical action picture with high exit-polling scores as well, may very well repeat at the top of the box office this weekend. But a movie every critic and pundit has trashed, … Continue reading →

Decades into an ongoing fascination with Japanese cinema, I can still say the most revealing portraits I’ve seen of the home front there during World War II are animated — anime, cartoons. It’s not as if the country’s cinema has … Continue reading →