Author Archives: Roger Moore

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 →

It’s hard to work up much enthusiasm — or any at all — for “Little Jar,” a limited-cast/couple of settings COVID comedy that comes too late to cash in on “Look at the movie they got made despite restrictions” and … Continue reading →

When streaming was still new, I had a notion that it might be the perfect place for movies and filmmakers who’d rarely fill-four-corners of a theater with their work, the creators of romances, dramas and thrillers on a smaller scale. … Continue reading →

It takes a good 70 minutes for Danish filmmaker Bille August’s period piece “Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction,” to get through its talk-talk-talk opening acts, on its feet and find its fun and its purpose. It’s a 94 minute film, … Continue reading →

Vampires, lest we forget, are very old. How old? Grandma’s Consumer Cellular flip-phone-using old. Some of them could stand to do some situps. And given their druthers, when they “vant to drink your blood,” they’d prefer to serve it to … Continue reading →

The time-honored “summer camp” kids comedy earns a most innocuous treatment with “Camp Hideout,” an almost faith-based take on a subject that “Meatballs,” “Ernest Goes to Camp,” an “Addams Family” movie and many others got to before it, almost always … Continue reading →