Category Archives: Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news

In a streaming universe where whole channels are devoted to music documentaries, it’s inevitable that almost any band you an think of, any band anybody cares about, is going to merit a film telling their story. Many of these films … Continue reading →

This is the golden age of binge watching and streaming series. But I find the storytelling cliffhanger formulaic. And reviewing series is time consuming, and the reviews typically have no shelf life. So I try not to invest in many … Continue reading →

Michael Bay and Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza Gonzalez…April 8.

An Italian period piece/fantasy of romance, treasure, pistols and crabs. This one opens April 15. Oscilloscope has “The Tale of King Crab,” and you know how I feel about them.

A mushroom expert bonds with a runaway he meets in the woods collecting mushrooms in “The Issue with Elvis,” a milder-than-mild-mannered family drama set in wild, wonderful West Virginia. The drama is low-key/low-stakes, the pace is leisurely and the dialogue … Continue reading →

Film and the culture it reflects tends towards gross oversimplifications. When a terrible crime happens, we want it explained. We want to know what “triggered” this person, what made them “finally snap.” The truth is always muddier, more complicated. Sometimes, … Continue reading →

The latest film from the writer director of “A Prophet,” “Rust and Bone” and “The Sisters Brothers” is a menage a quatre romance. This one, titled “Les Olympiades” in France, opens on North America April 15.

Downbeat, infuriating, reluctant to give up its mystery and illogical and anticlimactic by its finale, “Compartment No. 6” parks us in a Russian train for a long journey from Moscow to Murmansk with two intriguingly mismatched traveling companions. It might … Continue reading →

A hit novel? This comes to the screen this July.

This looks topical, in that “Handmaid’s Tale” sort of way, men engineering a pushback against moment over grievances real or imagined. Looks seriously spooky, and May 20 we see just how spooky.