Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

There are EIGHT credited screenwriters for “Major Grom: Plague Doctor.” You know what they call that in Mother Russia and its satellite state of Kentucky? SOCIALISM. Imagine a “Batman” in which Alfred the Butler is the real caped “crusader,” a … Continue reading →

“Downeast” is an indie thriller so simple as to be elemental. It’s about a small town under the thumb of a local gangster, a crime long-ago covered-up and heroin headed for Boston’s rough and ever-so-Italian “North End.” The setting, the … Continue reading →

A24 picked this up, it played at Cannes, and looks wonderful — an expansion of Kilmer’s recent breezy autobiography.

“Secret Magic Control Agency” is an animated comedy that works up its own “wizarding world” for a fanciful spin on alternate lives for fairytale siblings Hansel and Gretel. The animation is polished 3D/CG, with tactile, pliable plastic-looking humans and dogs, … Continue reading →

An old woman is tormented to death and her tormenters are lured into dialing her up in her grave as punishment in “The Call,” a thriller so derivative it gives “derivative” a bad name. It’s another “face your personal nightmares” … Continue reading →

You don’t have to be into the art rock/glam rock/proto-punk synth pop pranksters Sparks to get a kick out of “The Sparks Brothers,” the definitive documentary history that fanboy Edgar Wright created in their honor. The director of “Shaun of … Continue reading →

Here’s one of the side benefits of spending a lifetime in journalism — learning to listen, paying attention to not just what people you’re interviewing say, but how they express it. And if you don’t stop at merely taking notes, … Continue reading →

“Meander” is a tense torture porn parable about a tormented soul further tormented and tortured when she’s kidnapped and held hostage in the most elaborate hamster-maze ever conceived. If you let yourself get caught up in the logistics of how … Continue reading →

“Twee” is a seriously small target to aim for in a romantic comedy, a real “go twee or go home” gamble. And when you swing and miss? Ouchie. “Love Type D” is an ever-so-slight, daft but deflatingly-so Britcom that never … Continue reading →

The presence of another Asian “dragon” cartoon on the calendar sentenced Sony’s “Wish Dragon” to a streaming release, on Netflix. Well, that and the lame “Aladdin in Modern Day China” premise. But even though it’s got a magic lamp — … Continue reading →