Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

How can a movie set in Brazil’s Carnival, the colorful, hedonistic Bacchanal held in the days leading up to every Ash Wednesday — unless there’s a global pandemic — come off as drab as “Carnaval?” Colorful costumes, fruity drinks, gaudy … Continue reading →

A couple of things brought this 1950 movie to mind before it popped up on “Sunday Night Noir” a few days ago. The first was Jeff Bezos over-paying for MGM and its vast library. Film libraries used to be more … Continue reading →

The cheerful, generous employment of vintage second-gen video game graphics and a broad, goofy Nickelodeon/Disney Channel comedy touch are what the makers of the indie film “Hero Mode” hoped to skate by with. They don’t quite pull it off, but … Continue reading →

The ideal person to review the new “Spirit” animated movie would be maybe nine, probably a little girl and certainly a fan of the “Spirit: Riding Free” TV series that spun off of the 2002 movie, “Spirit: Stallion of the … Continue reading →

“Tove” is an utterly conventional biopic about a seriously unconventional woman. Tove Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finnish writer, painter, cartoonist and caricaturist, one of the country’s most celebrated artists thanks to the pan-European fame her “Moomin” children’s books and comic … Continue reading →

A big reason that critics and cineastes flocked to Asian thrillers and gangster movies way back when Hong Kong auteur John Woo was just starting out was the sense that Hollywood had shown us everything it had to offer in … Continue reading →

Casting really good actors as the leads has paid endless dividends in “The Conjuring” films, and with every subtle, emotional gesture or realistic depiction of terror or shock, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make that as true in “The Conjuring: … Continue reading →

It’s always damned impressive to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers bring the same intensity he’s long been famous for in yet another “larger than life” role in the big screen. Meyers gives a soulful turn as a benevolent despot from the … Continue reading →

In this busy, rushed, multi-tasking world we live in, who has time for a movie that will not get to the point, a point, ANY point? So it is with “Open Your Eyes,” the latest film to use that well-worn … Continue reading →

You’ve got to meet this dopey desert slasher picture on its own terms. You have to be ready to laugh at the archetypes/stereotypes, the one-liners, the D-movie bravado. “Why don’t you step out of there and fight me LIKE A … Continue reading →