Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

Seeing the film adaptation of the stage musical based on an Alice Walker novel that Steven Spielberg filmed nearly 40 years ago, I found it helpful to remember that Taraji P, Henson can sing, and that David Alan Grier is … Continue reading →

“Our Son” is a child care/child custody soap opera about married gay couple who divorce and then fight over who gets primary custody of their son. It’s a sensitively-mounted drama that bears more than a passing resemblence to “Kramer vs. … Continue reading →

Hungary’s bid for Best International Feature Oscar is a lovely and poignant animated environmental parable built on Native American mythology. Director and co-writer Áron Gauder’s “Four Souls of Coyote” would also seem like a natural contender in a very weak … Continue reading →

Next year, the current state of the art of Godzilla CGI design teams up with the latest update of King Kong. A few actors are on board, too — Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Brian Tyree Henry.

My favorite Neil Simon play is probably “God’s Favorite,” a broad comic riff on a man tested by God…and an obnoxious family. It’s based on the Biblical “Book of Job.” “The Shift” is a big screen sci-fi spin on that … Continue reading →

The puzzle has many solutions, most or even all of them “wrong.” We’re asked to weigh abuse and bullying, gossip, guilt, grief and pathology, all told via five different points of view. And whatever the viewer decides, on the screen … Continue reading →

A groaning 110 minutes of agenda in search of a laugh, “Lady Ballers” is an “anti-woke” transphobic comedy from the conservative media site Daily Wire. An impotent exercise in attempted “punching down” at the groups hate groups love to hate, … Continue reading →

Well, God and Gromit bless Netflix for signing checks and putting Aardman Animations on the task of serving up fresh stop-motion animated whimsy for us all. But “fresh” doesn’t really figure in their laugh-starved, half-hearted sequel to 2000’s “Chicken Run.” … Continue reading →

We’ve all seen the ads that litter broadcast TV, law firms pleading for potential clients to come forward and join class action lawsuits against Big Pharma, Big Investment, Big Credit Card, Big Chemicals and about the “water” at Camp LeJeune. … Continue reading →

Lurid and tacky enough to be ripped from real (American) life and packaged and scored right up to the edge of campy soap opera, Todd Hayne’s “May December” has that air of sexual transgression that has characterized his most memorable … Continue reading →