Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

Veteran German documentarian Heinz Emigolz’s “The Last City” is an interlocking series of conversations with actor/characters taking us from Israel and Serbia to Greece, China and Brazil in a quintet of vignettes that seem to have only the loosest connections. … Continue reading →

Let’s resist the urge to judge a new Japanese religious movement with the label we slap on every faith new enough to invite ridicule — “cult.” Instead, let Happy Science explain itself via a movie it has released, although maybe … Continue reading →

Next time you’re in Orlando, Planet Earth’s Vacationland, drop the name “Billy Flanigan.” Just don’t try to find somebody with anything bad to say about him. That’s an exercise in futility that would eat up your whole visit. “Mr. Disney,” … Continue reading →

Nov. 1, this film from the director of “Cocains e Cowboys” comes to Hulu. The pool boy, the rich and entitled rich religious hustlers, the New York con artist, all here. And Tom Arnold. Remember how he helped expose this?

Tricks and traps and poison and old friends and high stakes. This one features RZA and Liam Hemsworth in support and hits theaters Nov. 16, streaming shortly thereafter. My review of “Poker Face” is linked here.

The simple pleasure of seeing Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor paired-up as brothers by different mothers does the heavy lifting of “Raymond & Ray,” a downbeat dramedy about their dead father’s last wish. It starts out as an estranged-sibling melodrama, … Continue reading →

The first four or five times one hears a snippet of the story of how 1920s and ’30s singing, dancing and acting sensation Josephine Baker was a French spy of great repute during World War II, the only rational reaction … Continue reading →

The climbing footage is striking and the Alpine settings breathtaking in “Summit Fever,” a mountaineering thriller that also boasts some of the most stark and startling deaths the genre has ever seen. Sure, there are formulaic touches and in its … Continue reading →

“Shady Grove” is another “city folks trapped in a cabin in the woods” tale, this one with a pregnant couple partying with their best friend, when a demonic cult interferes. You know how demonic cults are about pregnant women. It’s … Continue reading →

One reason I avoid any Twitter, Facebook etc. “Name one movie you’ve watched more than five times” meme in its many forms is simple mathematics. There are scores upon scores of movies I’ll stop to watch a bit of while … Continue reading →