Tag Archives: movies

Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me

Just when you think that you’ve seen and heard all sides of the human migration debate, and long after you fear that the cruel, the ignorant and the scapegoaters have won that shouting match, a film comes along and defies … Continue reading

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Netflixable? Comfort Food Film is Always in Season, “Goodbye June”

Oscaar winner Kate Winslet directed and stars in “Goodbye June,” a sentimental and sharply-observed dramedy in which terrific performances and a couple of deeply emotional scenes overcome the glum predictability of it all. Because everybody knows the holidays are a … Continue reading

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Movie Review: “Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer”

Sometimes a film title says it all, or at least entirely too much. Turkish filmmaker Tolga Karaçelik blunders into that truism all too eagerly with his American feature film debut — a comic thriller he deigned to over-label “Psycho Therapy: … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: Hitchcock “adapts” to Talkies — “East of Shanghai” (aka “Rich and Strange”) (1931)

It came as a surprise for me, and probably shouldn’t have, that Alfred Hitchcock’s transition to sound from silent cinema took more than a film or two and more than a year or two. Hitchcock was half a dozen films … Continue reading

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Documentary Review: An Environmental/Farm Economy Parable from Macedonia — “The Tale of Silyan”

An ancient parable is remembered and acted-out in modern day Macedonia in “The Tale of Silyan,” the latest documentary from the director of the Oscar-nominated “Honeyland.” Writer-director Tamara Kotesvka documents the collapse of her country’s small farm economy and sees … Continue reading

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Movie Review: What Makes “Marty Supreme?”

New York filmmaker Josh Safdie has his fans, and I’ve been one of them at times. At other times? Not so much. He does underbelly-of-the-city stories well. “Good Time” was something of a reinvention of the possibilities of Robert Pattinson. … Continue reading

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Movie Review: “Song Sung Blue” Weepin’ in My Popcorn

Sing-along songs are musical comfort food, and any songsmith, singer or singer-songwriter can count him or herself lucky if they stumble into one in the course of a career. Musical biographies are the cinema’s equivalent of such comfort food, and … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Black and Rudd & Co. Learn You Can’t Go “Anaconda” Again

Three movie stars who have been funny in their pre-dad-bod past and Thandiwe Newton — who’s rarely been called to land laughs — shipped off to Australia to make an action comedy about a supersized snake in the Amazon, a … Continue reading

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Movie Review: Kirby Howell-Baptiste is our Tour Guide among “We Strangers”

A hint of the inscrutable can do service to any film in any genre, and it pays off some surprising ways in “We Strangers,” an oddball domestic dramedy about a “domestic” and the dizzy white folks who hire her. Veteran … Continue reading

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Classic Film Review: “Detour” (1945), still as Noir as Film Noir Gets

“That’s life,” the anti-hero of “Detour” growls in voice-over. “Whichever way you turn, fate sticks out a foot to trip you.” Hardboiled, archetype-upending and gorgeous in its bare-bones minimalism, “Detour” is quintessential film noir. “The Maltese Falcon” preceded it and … Continue reading

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