Tag Archives: movies

Classic Film Review: It’s 2025 — Are we ready for What Cukor, Hepburn ,Tracy and Donald Ogden Stewart warned us about Fascism? “Keeper of the Flame” (1942)

Big speeches rife with “the F-word”– “fascism” — pack the third act of “Keeper of the Flame,” a mid-WWII MGM thriller that was a tad too anti-fascist for fat cat studio chief Louis B. Mayer. Those speeches also burden a … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Affleck and Bernthal BOTH do the math in “The Accountant 2”

It’s too long and entirely too damned glib about the ultraviolent mayhem it unleashes on the just and the unjust. The plot is intentionally convoluted, with “hero” assassins and a disapproving Fed out to save a lady assassin from the … Continue reading

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Movie Review: It’s game-over if you can’t make it “Until Dawn”

You could probably tell in a couple of minutes that this weekend’s cinematic sacrificial lamb to the horror gods is based on a video game without being reminded that “Until Dawn” was born on Playstation in the opening credits. Stock … Continue reading

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Movie Review: A Gay Fantasia about Honest Abe’s Same Sex Romance — “Lavender Men”

“Lavender Men” is an ambitious but meandering and indulgent indie film failure. It’s not the subject matter that does it in, as it’s another film (“Lover of Men”) and play (“Oh, Mary!”) that dives into the notion that Abraham Lincoln … Continue reading

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Movie Review: A Robot Might Provide or Deny “The Last Spark of Hope”

Almost all science fiction is in the business of world-building, creating a landscape, setting, period in time or even “universe” where the story takes place. Dystopias engage in world-destroying. The Polish thriller “The Last Spark of Hope” manages to serve … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Viola Davis is a (literally) Embattled President trying to Survive “G20”

When it comes to action pictures, there’s “So bad that it’s good” and whatever the hell “G20” amounts to. So bad that it’s not godawful? The idea of Oscar winner Viola Davis, aka “The Woman King,” as a two-fisted, combat … Continue reading

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Netflixable? Dutch cops try to free “iHostage” from an Apple Store

At some point in the police procedural “iHostage” the viewer is obliged to fight off the urge to look up the Dutch translation for “Yeah, and?” Let me save you the trouble. It’s “Ja, en?” The film is a solid, … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Ambitious “Sinners” fails to transcend genre

“Black Panther,” “Creed” and “Fruitvale Station” director Ryan Coogler sets his sights on horror with “Sinners,” a sprawling Depression Era tale of race, religion and “The Devil’s Music,” the blues. Coogler immerses us in the early ’30s South where a … Continue reading

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Movie Review: “A Wedding Banquet” remake shows us Just How Far We’ve Come

More charming than amusing, chosing sentiment over “edge,” the Andrew Ahn remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 queer cinema classic “The Wedding Banquet” gives the viewer time to reflect on just how much American and world culture have changed in the … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: A Ken Loach dip into Dickensiana — “Black Jack” (1979)

Ken Loach built his career on films of protest, depicting the oppressed of many places and many eras in their struggle against their oppressors. The Brit’s “socialist realism” was obvious from his breakthrough English working class classic “Kes,” with the … Continue reading

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