Tag Archives: books

Classic Film Review: A Brit Baby Boomer lost in His Own World — “Billy Liar” (1963)

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Roger Moore

Falling into “Billy Liar” is no easy feat, even for a film buff, over sixty years after it was released. It’s been included in more than one list of “the 100 Best British Films Ever Made,” albeit in the bottom … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Emma and Hugh and Kate and Rickman and Austen and Ang Lee, “Sense and Sensibility” (1995)

Posted on June 7, 2025 by Roger Moore

Watching any movie with Jane Austen ties inevitably sends me back to at least one of my favorites among the films and TV series based on her works. “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life” was no exception. It wouldn’t be “Emma” … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: A writer, her mentor and “The Friend” Great Dane who takes over her life

Posted on April 4, 2025 by Roger Moore

You might have to be a dog lover to truly engage and “get” “The Friend,” a melancholy meditation on suicide, loss, character and our obligations to someone who has killed himself. And if you’re unsure about the depth of your … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? A Disabled Child, a Mom Determined to Save Him — “Lucca’s World”

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Roger Moore

A guilt-ridden journalist tries everything, grasping at any “miracle treatments” straw, in an effort to save her disabled-at-birth son in “Lucca’s World,” an engrossing Around the World with Netflix weeper from Mexico. Based on the non-fiction book by Bárbara Anderson, … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: A 1970 “radical” family working through their issues — “Three Birthdays”

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Roger Moore

“Radical” politics — sexual, racial and otherwise — Vietnam, the first Earth Day, the sexual revolution, “female solidarity” and Kent State are the backdrop of “Three Birthdays,” a downbeat family melodrama about the day “The Sixties Died.” Writer-director Jane Weinstock … Continue reading →

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Series Review: Tom Wolfe’s “A Man in Full” becomes an Oversexed Cracker Cartoon for Netflix

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Roger Moore

Tom Wolfe’s darkly comic 1998 novel “A Man in Full” comes to the screen, courtesy of another king of ’80s and ’90s entertainment, TV writer/producer David E. Kelley. The book, uneven but page-turning trash encompassing Wolfe’s favorite themes — class, … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? “Girl Haunts Boy,” a teen romance for tweens

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Roger Moore

Here’s an exceptionally mild-mannered Netflix teen romance built around a couple of cute young leads made “stars” by earlier Netflix outings. Peyton List (“Kobra Kai”) plays a flapper teen who swipes a magic ring and dies in 1928, only to … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Once more to Middle Earth, before “The Lord of the Rings,” “The War of the Rohirrim”

Posted on December 14, 2024 by Roger Moore

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is a dull placeholder pic rolled out by Warner Animation to keep the company’s intellectual property rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth current in the public’s mind. Streaming series aside, … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” not the worst holiday movie ever

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Roger Moore

“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” the latest film of the based on the early ’70s Barbara Robinson novel, comes to the screen with all the charms and shortcomings of a thousand Little Theatre stage productions over the decades. Uplifting in … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Karen Gillan’s a lost soul ready to join the “Late Bloomers”

Posted on November 7, 2024 by Roger Moore

“Jumanji” and Marvel veteran Karen Gillan finally finds a star vehicle in sync with her brittle, awkwardly funny persona with “Late Bloomers,” a sentimental comedy about an aimless, guilt-stricken young woman who finally grows up when she takes on the … Continue reading →

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