Author Archives: Roger Moore

We first glimpse Zenia’s “gift,” his “super-power,” when he interviews for a work permit with a Polish bureaucrat, the first person we hear make a joke about where the young man is from. “Pripyat? Near Chernobyl? Perhaps you’re radioactive!” Others … Continue reading →

Cypress trees in their grey winter garb, moss and rust-covered RVs, McMansions and omnipresent double-wides show off Greater Tampa to accurate effect in “Painkiller,” a thriller about the opioid epidemic, those who profit from from and a murderous “avenger” out … Continue reading →

An arresting setting, funereal tone and solid performances don’t wholly atone for a script that’s thin on frights or suspense in the Aussie thriller “Sweet River.” It’s about lost children and adults who die supernatural deaths when they try to … Continue reading →

“Together Together” is an offbeat comedy that sets out to redefine “intimacy” for a “woke” and lonely age. A pre-pandemic romantic/”unromantic” comedy, it has the currency of a Woody Allen takedown and a clever way of warily circling any notion … Continue reading →

Simi Liu is the lead but Awkwafina, Michelle geog and Tony Leung are a lot more familiar to Western audiences.

The images are impressive, as you’d expect in any new nature doc about the giants of the sea. But the behaviors observed and revelations about whale “language,” “culture,” knowledge passed-down, generation to generation, expressions of curiosity, “love” and “grief” are … Continue reading →

Staid, stiff and stately history, “Queen Marie,” titled “Queen Marie of Romania” in Europe, plays like a lesser installment of “Masterpiece Theatre,” a reminder that not everything in costume and ripped from the pages of royal history is a “masterpiece.” … Continue reading →

A little Lumberton, N.C. after dark, a little Zoom Q & A with Isabella Rossellini afterwards. Let’s see if I can get “off script” for my introduction. A 35th anniversary showing at the 30th anniversary FFF. Great way to polish … Continue reading →

Morgan Freeman sits in a wheelchair and orders B-movie action queen Ruby Rose around in “Vanquish,” a slow-walking, slow-drawling thriller filled with actors who have no business being in a movie with Freeman, who’s barely in it himself. It’s bad … Continue reading →