Tag Archives: film

Movie Review: Different century, new setting, same old “Wolf Man”

Universal futzed around with rebooting its classic werewolf horror franchise “Wolf Man” for years, and delayed releasing the latest finished film as well. Perhaps they were hoping more time would pass and we’d all forget the many other incarnations of … Continue reading

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Netflixable? Ex-cop Scrambles Up and Down and all around Paris “Ad Vitam”

The Latin title “Ad Vitam” doesn’t translate to “over the top,” which might be the biggest letdown in this brisk — once it gets going — French action picture. A star vehicle conceived by Gullaume Canet, (“All Time High”), a … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Accept no Substititute for this Suspsense Masterpiece — “The Wages of Fear” (1953)

Stanley Kubrick was among the most famous filmmakers to assert that if you can’t tell what’s happening in a film — the emotions and motivations of the characters and the point of it all — with the sound turned off, … Continue reading

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Movie Review: More heists, more Butler and Jackson — “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera”

One hesitates to ever use the phrase “lazy” in describing the epic enterprise that is the making of any major motion picture. But the temptation is there in describing writer-director Christian Gudegast’s reunion with Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson, Jr. … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Donnie Yen punches and kicks for justice as “The Prosecutor”

Martial arts icon Donnie Yen directs and stars in “The Prosecutor,” playing a two-fisted, idealistic Hong Kong cop turned prosecuting attorney. Some of the most fantastic fights in recent screen history, choreographed by Takahita Ouichi and Donnie Yen Stunt Team … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Hopkins is “The Efficiency Expert,” but are Crowe, Collette and Mendelsohn getting the ax? (1991)

Three future stars from Down Under pop off the screen in “The Efficiency Expert,” a delicate, dated and yet timeless fish-out-of-water period piece set in Australia at the birth of the job-cutting “consultant” boom. Toni Collette, impressive and emotional in … Continue reading

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Why Netflix is eating Amazon’s Lunch on Streaming

Netflix has 280 million subscribers, worldwide. People who pay for Netflix are paying for unlimited access to thousands of movies and series they watch. Amazon Prime, the online retail giant’s answer to Netflix, has 200 million “members” worldwide, but only … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Danny Kaye goes Marxist as “The Inspector General” (1949)

How might a moviegoer in 1949 have responded to Danny Kaye in the musical version of Gogol’s “The Inspector General?” Watching it anew, my hot take is “It’s a Marx Bros. musical with Kaye trying to play all four Marx … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Ladyboss has a taste for being dominated — “Babygirl”

Dutch actress-turned-director Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” is an icy, clinical inversion of our idea of masochism and “abuse of power” in the workplace. The director of “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies” sets up Nicole Kidman as a “woman on top” at the office, … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Bob the Bard in Epic strokes, Dylan as “A Complete Unknown”

Boyd Holbrook’s Johnny Cash out-cools, out-swaggers and out hell-raises future Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan in Dylan’s own biopic. I wonder if “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold ever winced and muttered “Damn” about who he originally cast to star … Continue reading

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