Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

Gather round, children, and let the Old Man of the Movies tell you the way it used to be in the simmering cinematic summers of the Old South. Movie theaters were the first public spaces, nationwide, to invest in air … Continue reading →

Sometimes, an indie film’s pedigree is far more interesting than the movie itself, and so it is with “Alina,” an inconsequential Russian immigrant lured into “personal escort” work by the support system she leans on upon arriving in New York. … Continue reading →

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma didn’t dampen turnout for Stephen King’s “It,” which almost doubled pre-release projections to open with almost $117 million on its opening weekend. No stars, a second adaptation of a book turned into a TV mini series … Continue reading →

For a movie critic, stumbling across a “new to Netflix” release you haven’t seen or even heard of is an “Uh oh” moment — for the film’s stars. “We’re No Animals,” the last and least title conjured up for an … Continue reading →

I had the same doubts about Jason Zinoman’s “The Last Giant of Late Night” Letterman biography that I had about his New York Timesman predecessor Bill Carter’s “The Late Shift.” That is that the book starts out with the same … Continue reading →

Consider this. Horror movies typically have a box office ceiling, which the “Conjuring/Insidious” and more recently “Annabelle” folks have pushed against. Consider too, that Stephen King’s brand is 40 years old and his track record with film adaptations has been … Continue reading →

Hollywood is famous for its short collective memory. But they have reason to want to forget last summer. In box office terms, it was chilling, a near disaster, a “What’s the future of this business?” level fall-off.  Historically bad, a … Continue reading →

Take your typical Nancy Meyers wish-fulfillment romantic comedy — “Something’s Gotta Give” or “It’s Complicated,” say. Rub anything resembling an edge off, and rob it of any charismatic turns by stars such as Diane Keaton, Robert DeNiro (“The Intern”) or … Continue reading →

To people in the know, financial “bubbles” must have long looked like hurricanes as we see them in the digital/satellite age. They’re slow-moving disasters waiting to happen giving plenty of warning that the End is Nigh, if you’re willing to … Continue reading →

Disney has become the movie studio equivalent of a baseball manager with “a quick hook,” ready to pull the trigger on changing pitchers the minute things start to go south. They chased the animation vets in charge of the Han … Continue reading →