Author Archives: Roger Moore

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine

BOX OFFICE: “Red One” bombs, “Heretic” thrives, “A Real Pain” opens wide, “Christmas Pageant” abides

Posted on November 16, 2024 by Roger Moore

Ill-conceived, as many a Christmas “action comedy” has been, the Dwayne Johnson/Chris Evans/J.K. Simmons “Santa’s security detail” romp “Red One” earned dismissive reviews and a great big yawn from filmgoers. Whoever thought a $200-250 million movie about threats to Santa … Continue reading →

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Movie Preview: Ben Stiller hits the upstaged-by-kids “Holiday Comedy” stage of his career —  “Nutcrackers”

Posted on November 15, 2024 by Roger Moore

Everything in this trailer moans “Tired” and “played.” Linda Cardinelli co stars in this “fostering little monsters” comedy. This looks like something our lad Ben might have been in 30 years ago. Nov. 29 on Hulu.

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Classic Film Review: Hitchcock becomes “Hitch” — “The 39 Steps” (1935)

Posted on November 15, 2024 by Roger Moore

While he was alive, critics had little trouble finding ways to discount Alfred Hitchcock’s genius and underrate his later decades of entertaining, bubbly and even chilling thrillers. Because that generation of reviewers remembered “The 39 Steps.” This 1935 romp of … Continue reading →

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Movie Preview: Steve Coogan learns from his tuxedo’d pal — “The Penguin Lessons”

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Roger Moore

A true story, an Englishman transplanted in clip crazed 1970s Argentina and a little Jonathan Pryce on the side? This played at the Toronto Film Fest this fall, and Lionsgate cannot wait to release it.

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Movie Preview: Rami Malek is “The Amateur” Out to Kill His Wife’s Murderers

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Roger Moore

Laurence Fishburne, Julianne Nicholson, Rachel Brosnahan and Jon Bernthal are among the supporting players in this “cryptoanalyst turned assassin/agent” thriller. April 11.

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Documentary Review: “Billy Preston — That’s the Way God Planned It”

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Roger Moore

Whenever Ringo Starr is asked about the pianist/organist, singer and “fifth Beatle” Billy Preston, “He never put his hands in the wrong place” is his highest compliment. One music producer who worked with the two-time Grammy winner marveled at Preston’s … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: A Father sees his Estranged Daughters “In the Summers”

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Roger Moore

“In the Summers” is a wistful elegy to the passing of childhood and the recognition and acceptance of the flaws of those who made us. Alexssandra Lacorazza’s downbeat debut feature follows two California sisters through the ups and downs of … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? Troubled Couple’s Children have “Vanished into the Night”

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Roger Moore

The stakes could not be higher in the thriller “Vanished into the Night.” A father, in debt and going through a divorce, loses his children to kidnappers and must reconnect with a hoodlum from his wayward youth to raise the … Continue reading →

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Movie Preview: Kyle Mooney imagines what MIGHT have happened on “Y2K”

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Roger Moore

“Saturday Night Live” alumnus Mooney and music video director Evan Winter (credited as co-writer here) dreamed up an alt reality where instead of Bill Clinton & Co. planning for and preventing a cyber meltdown of computers on Jan 1, 2000, … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: A Little Romance, a Touch of Class, and Class Warfare — “The Philadelphia Story” (1940)

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Roger Moore

It begins with a screwball tease — a couple, wordlessly breaking up, climaxing with the husband maniacally grabbing the wife by the forehead and shoving her back through the door and onto the floor. But even though the wife is … Continue reading →

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