Tag Archives: film

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

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Roger Moore

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)

Posted on February 24, 2025 by Roger Moore

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

Posted on February 23, 2025 by Roger Moore

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”

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Roger Moore

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”

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Roger Moore

“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”

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Roger Moore

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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Movie Review: Stephen King commits (Amusing-ish) Murder via a Wind-Up Toy — “The Monkey”

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Roger Moore

The blood and guts of “The Monkey” is played for laughs in Osgood Perkins’ film of Stephen King’s monstrous wind-up toy thriller. It’s a heavy-handed, staggering splatter comedy with random laughs mixed with random slaughter, all of it cast and … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Coming-of-Age Asian American — “Didi”

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Roger Moore

“Didi” is a gentle but sharp-edged tale of a California teen coming to terms with who he is, a movie that invites grimaces of recognition even as it advertises its “different culture” status. Writer-director Sean Wang’s debut feature fits neatly … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Jeremy Irons leads a Polish Home Renovation in 1980s London — “Moonlighting” (1982)

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Roger Moore

A cut-rate Polish work crew slips into wintry 1981 London to do an off-the-books home renovation in “Moonlighting,” Jerzy Skolimowski’s droll and intimate comment on capitalism, the collapse of communism and the horrors of cut-rate home repair. It’s one of … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: The terror and heartbreak of life under a dictatorship — the Oscar-contending “I’m Still Here”

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Roger Moore

A mother and father contemplate sending their oldest daughter to London to study. It’s 1970 and the family lives in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil has been under a military dictatorship for years. the daughter is college age, rebellious, and the … Continue reading →

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