Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

The German army earned its nickname “bloody Huns” in the opening weeks of World War I. Their atrocities — slaughtering civilians, razing villages and towns — in 1914 Flanders and Wallonia instantly marked them as new barbarians, modern Huns, and … Continue reading →

This Nora Fingscheidt film is based on Amy Lipsot’s poetic coming-through-the-other-side memoir. Awards season, here we come!

“Le samouraï” (1967) is rightly regarded as the hit-man movie, the one which most modern thrillers in this lone-gunman genre spin out of. It’s got a handsome solitary “Killer,” living in a non-descript apartment with only a pet bullfinch (not … Continue reading →

Frances Fisher is the big name in the cast of this “island girl with powers” thriller. Clayne Crawford and Michael Greyeyes also star. Not sure of the streaming/theatrical date, but Vertical Releasing has this one.

This cute old coot comedy stars an Oscar winner. Not that this incompetent trailer tells us that. It opens Sept. 10. Not that this incompetent trailer tells us that. It’s from Gravitas Ventures. At least they own that and got … Continue reading →

Naomie Ackie, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment and Alia Shawkat also star in this “billionaire’s island” nightmare from actress turned writer-director Zoë K. August 23.

“House of Ga’a” is a sweeping historical epic from Nigeria, a tale of backstabbing and poisoning intrigues, lust, brutality and greed set just before the events depicted in the West Africa of “The Woman King.” There’s a universality to this … Continue reading →

“Great Absence,” the festival-feted “breakout film” of director and co-writer Kei Chika-ura, is a somber, obscure mystery about memory, regret and entropy. It’s centered on a son trying to learn what his long-estranged father was really like before dementia took … Continue reading →

Jared Harris and Juliet Stevenson play the parents, distraught yet never giving up hope in this thriller. But when that daughter (Erin Doherty)  shows up, there are “so many questions.” A Sept. 13 UK opening is set for this one, … Continue reading →

Twenty years since its release, it’s fair to call Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” a classic, and even fairer to label this vintage dramedy a film that changed the culture — a couple of cultures. It made Paul Giamatti a star and … Continue reading →