Author Archives: Roger Moore

Emily Blunt and the best selling novel it is based on delivered a healthy opening weekend for “The Girl on the Train.” A fall murder mystery, better than average, it will have hit right around $25, maybe $26 million by … Continue reading →

Bullying, blood-spilling and a rising body count are the hallmarks of the Aussie “revenge comedy” “The Dressmaker.” It’s a darker-than-dark farce where the talent on hand is impressive, but the laughs are sparse and grimly won. Maybe you have to … Continue reading →

An unreliable narrator proves an unreliable eyewitness to a crime in “The Girl on the Train,” a tricky thriller whose tricks are less important than its riveting leading lady. Emily Blunt has the title role in this film, based on … Continue reading →

The late American journalist and fiction writer Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” has proven to have one of the most durable plots in all of fiction. A 1924 short story also known as “The Hounds of Zaroff,” is about … Continue reading →

How far into “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” did director Tim Burton get before he realized he’d split up with the only woman who could play the title role? Because it’s pretty obvious Eva Green is just a younger, duller interpretation … Continue reading →

All you need for screen romance is two characters, either in love, about to fall in love or remembering past love. But as simple as that template is, Hollywood rarely gets it right or even attempts to get it right. … Continue reading →

It seems so ludicrous, now. An American college student with a solid alibi and zero motive, almost no DNA evidence implicating her and no history of violence, arrested and convicted of taking part in a “sex party” ritualistic murder with … Continue reading →

  Tim Burton’s Harry Potterish “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is showing he still has a brand name at the box office, as late night Thursday and all-day Friday numbers put the film on track to hit $26 million … Continue reading →

The statistics are damning, the dots connect and the admissions — secretly recorded or otherwise admitted, are conclusive. There’s been a concerted effort to criminalize, incarcerate and stereotype black men as “super predators”, junkies and the like by opportunistic politicians, … Continue reading →

I had an editor early in my career who repeated her grandmother’s favorite oath any time the culture served up fresh evidence of the dire and depraved straits America was plunging into. “Fall of Rome. Fall of Rome.” It’s a … Continue reading →