Tag Archives: film

Movie Review: Prospective Parents Olsen and Patel quake at “The Assessment” by Alicia Vikander

“The Assessment” is smart and sinister sci-fi of “The Handmaids Tale” school, a striking, minimalist parable about humanity’s failings in facing an inhumane future. A geographically and architecturally stark setting hosts a grim lecture on family, population and the psychology … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Not all Hackman “classics” are created equal — “The Domino Principle” (1977)

Some vintage cinema you begin watching with the idea that you’re to see a “classic” featuring an Oscar winner, a famed producer/director and a handful of legends of the big and small screen. And some of those movies remind you … Continue reading

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Movie Review: R. Patts is Labor at its Most Disposable — “Mickey 17”

Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho’s latest film is an arch sci-fi parable about the troubled world we live in. An Earth-born colonist/laborer on the distant planet Nilfheim has been recruited by a charismatic but dimwitted poseur/ex-senator/cult-leader whose “propogate the species” … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Still a hoot — Mssr. Belmondo’s Holiday — “That Man from Rio (L’homme de Rio)” (1964)

Adrien, dashing from 1960s Rio de Janiero to Brasilia, the then new capital of Brazil, in a pink 1929 Chrysler 75 adored with green stars, pulls over at the first modernist police station he spies. He steps out of the … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Pop Starlet Samara just keeps pushing Nutty Fan’s “love” over the “Borderline”

Samara Weaving is a Madonna-esque pop superstar stalked by Ray Nicholson in his father Jack’s full “Here’s JOHNNY!” nutjob mode in “Borderline,” a violent and crazed comedy about celebrity and the delusions it feeds to those who have it and … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Herzog’s “Cannes Darling” “Woyzek” (1979)

The great German director Werner Herzog and his muse, Klaus Kinski, marched through three films together in their peak years, 1978-82. “Nosferatu the Vampyr” was a hit, and “Fitzcarraldo” was a career-defining epic for both director and star, an ordeal … Continue reading

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Movie Review: A Young Hitman is tested by “Old Guy” Christoph Waltz, his Mentor

Hitman thrillers long ago ran out of anything new to do with the genre, lapsing into glib sometime after “La Femme Nikita” back in the ’90s. Nowadays, “glib” isn’t enough. If you’re not aiming for “flippant” like 1974’s “Thunderbolt and … Continue reading

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Movie Review: A Master Mocks Yakuza Hit-Man Movies — “Broken Rage”

Leave it to Beat Takeshi to ridicule the cinematic elephantiasis that has even the Great Scorsese pushing the limits of how long a night out at the movies should last. And that Brady Corbet “Brutalist” guy? Three and a half … Continue reading

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Movie Review: An Oscar-nominated animated “Incredible Journey” from Latvia — “Flow”

“Flow” is a futuristic Franco-Latvian fantasy, an animated sci-fi version of Disney’s classic animal odyssey, “The Incredible Journey.” Gints Zilbalodis’ film, an Oscar nominee as Best Animated Feature and as Best International Feature, is a dialogue-free travelogue that follows a … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Teachers Accuse, Debate and Judge a Mother and her Son named “Armand”

Something that happened at school is debated and “measures” are weighed and furiously argued and even experienced through interpretive dance in the challenging but slow feature filmmaking debut of Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the grandson of the great actress Liv Ullmann. … Continue reading

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