Tag Archives: movies

Movie Review: Same ol’ “Mortal Kombat,” but Urban adds a little Humor — “Mortal Kombat II”

Posted on May 8, 2026 by Roger Moore

Video game fans seem to never tire of film adaptations of beloved big screen throwbacks to their misspent youth. The movies are often plotless, just collections of quips and a parade of indifferently tied-together scenes with this or that beloved … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: “The Sheep Detectives” hunt for Suspects when their Shepherd is Offed

Posted on May 8, 2026 by Roger Moore

I can’t say much for the plot of “The Sheep Detecives,” a children’s murder mystery about talking, crime-solving sheep from those sheep-and-murder mad Brits. The “murder mystery” isn’t particularly mysterious and its solution leaves a lot to be desired. And … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: A Period Piece as Dated as its Period — “The Choral”

Posted on May 4, 2026 by Roger Moore

The writing and directing duo who brought “The Madness of King George (The Madness of George III),” “The History Boys” and “The Lady in the Van” first to the London stage, and then to the screen skip the whole West … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: A Stand-up Comic’s last “line” of defense — “Is This Thing On?”

Posted on May 4, 2026 by Roger Moore

The trailers to “Is This Thing On?” had me hyped to catch it during its awards season run. Will Arnett, one of the funniest actors to hold a SAG card, playing a midlife crisis character who copes by trying his … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? June Squibb is “Eleanor the Great”

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Roger Moore

Timing, especially in comedy, is everything. But Sony Pictures Classics had no way of knowing that its Oscar-campaigned Jewish Holocaust dramedy “Eleanor the Great” would come out in the middle of worldwide outrage at an ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? Coogan and Bird Charm their Way through a Class on Fascism — “The Penguin Lessons”

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Roger Moore

No English speaking actor in film is better at making caddish and insufferably self-absorbed charming than Steve Coogan. That proves to be a saving grace of “The Penguin Lessons,” a sweet saunter through a true story of a rescued bird … Continue reading →

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

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Roger Moore

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”

Posted on January 3, 2026 by Roger Moore

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”

Posted on January 2, 2026 by Roger Moore

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)

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Roger Moore

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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