Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

The long weekend, which stretches into into a midweek holiday with July 4 coming Tuesday, started out more promising for Universal’s “Despicable Me 3.” Sure, the ads suggested zero laughs, and without the Minions, a “Cars 3” fate awaited. But … Continue reading →

Give it up for Marvel imposing its will on Sony for the THIRD Spider-Man incarnation in living memory. They don’t repeat the origin story this time, change-up the age of the title character and give him the ADHD energy that … Continue reading →

Here’s a music history documentary that doesn’t answer its titular question for a long while. All through the punk and metal clubs of 1970s New York, musicians, club owners, fellow fans and movers and shakers would see this kid — … Continue reading →

THE popcorn picture of the summer — that would be “Baby Driver,” to you toy robots/boys in tights/girls in bustiers folks — is headed to a MARVEL-ous $27 million opening weekend. Not comic-book level, not “Fast and Furious” franchise level. … Continue reading →

This past week’s best misdirection play wasn’t a tweet from a doomed, bratty not-really-a-billionaire in the White House. It was from the cast and director of a comedy, dishing on how they’d cut Mariah Carey out of their movie for … Continue reading →

Beatriz wasn’t supposed to be there. Not at dinner, anyway. In the Red State/Blue State America of “winners” and “have-nots,” a working class Mexican-American like her wouldn’t sit down to a celebratory dinner with the callous super rich. She’d be … Continue reading →

Well, thank Gru for the Minions, anyway. Without the little yellow sidekicks, staging a “West Side Story” prison break, singing a gibberish “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” or “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” … Continue reading →

In “My Journey Through French Cinema,” the filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier becomes — for three hours and ten minutes — that favorite college professor, the one with thousands of stories, anecdotes passed on second or third hand. “Journey” is a long … Continue reading →

Yes, there’s another one. Rebel Wilson needs the cash, Anna Kenrick needs the relevance. Or is it the other way around? Christmas. Not much in the trailer other than Rebel’s fat-joke hat.

Sofia Coppola doesn’t acknowledge the earlier Clint Eastwood/Don Siegel film of “The Beguiled,” or even mention the Thomas Cullinan source novel in the credits. “Written and directed by Sofia Coppola.” Perhaps she never read it, or saw the earlier movie. … Continue reading →