Author Archives: Roger Moore

An oddly-dated, obvious and overwrought melodrama about gender roles and the toxic masculinity of Wall Street hedge funders, “Fair Play” is practically a parody of decades of women in the workplace romantic thrillers. It’s got Phoebe Dynevor of the sexy … Continue reading →

“Cutesie” does battle with “sentimental” in the feather-light romance “Love at First Sight,” basically a Netflix-financed 90 minutge excuse to pair up Haley Lu Richardson with Ben Hardy and have them lose each other in rainy, wintry London. It’s a … Continue reading →

Context is everything when it comes to “political thrillers,” especially “controversial” ones. “The Prisoner” is a war-of-wills tale set and filmed in the early days of The Cold War. Lauded by the British Film Academy (BAFTAs), banned at Cannes and … Continue reading →

It probably wasn’t on New Zealand journalist and filmmaker David Farrier’s mind as he tumbled into a story about narcississtic Kiwi name-caller, pathological liar and “in his own reality” con man named “Mister Organ” that he might have an American … Continue reading →

Imagine popping into a multiplex and diving into say, an “Avengers” or “Star Wars” movie. Imagine doing that in Papua-New Guinea or some place far removed from the “universes,” cultural tropes and long-beloved characters in those films and not having … Continue reading →

Some decades back, I interviewed the great Texas writer Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove,” “The Last Picture Show”) at a cocktail party thrown in his honor at the University of North Dakota’s Writers Conference, which that year was focused on Western … Continue reading →

Energy, violence and a breathless pace cover some of the many sins of “Freestyle,” a Polish hip hop thriller about selling drugs to finance a record because our Polish hero “needs to be spittin’” rhymes. Amped-up, coked-out drug dealers at … Continue reading →

Jane Fonda wasn’t the star attraction, or even the prettiest actress on the screen in her third film, 1962’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” The regal French beauty Capucine was higher billed. The versatile Anne Baxter and earth mama Joanna … Continue reading →

It sometimes seemed, in the long years of trials, deflections and evasions that comprised the last days of Chile’s murderous looter and dictator Augusto Pinochet, that the monstrous bastard would never die. A “normalized” and “accepted” despot with a tidier … Continue reading →