Tag Archives: writing

Documentary Review: Cleaning up the Ocean, One Butt at a Time — “The Cigarette Surfboard”

Posted on September 11, 2026 by Roger Moore

“The Cigarette Surfboard” is an upbeat travelogue documentary and surf picture about surfers turning into activists for cleaner oceans, and the power of ADHD creatives. Surfer and industrial designer Taylor Lane is the subject of the film, a Santa Cruz … Continue reading →

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Movie Review: Godawful Gal can’t get “The Runner” up to Speed

Posted on September 3, 2026 by Roger Moore

The star is generally too easy a target when you’re looking for the ways a movie goes wrong. So if we’re cutting Gal Gadot any slack at all for the debacle that “The Runner” turned out to be, let’s zero … Continue reading →

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Series Redux — “Saturday Night Live,” the First Season

Posted on September 2, 2026 by Roger Moore

I’ve been thinking a lot of late about Martin Short’s assertion — in Lawrence Kasdan’s “Life is Short” documentary — that “80 percent of comedy” fails, and the fact that he wasn’t talking just about his own efforts in landing … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? DeNiro, Monaghan and Scott need answers from “The Whisper Man”

Posted on August 29, 2026 by Roger Moore

Crackling performances and a twisty plot that mixes melodrama with suspense recommend “The Whisper Man,” a new thriller based on an Alex North novel. It’s “Silence of the Lambs” paying homage to “The Slender Man,” a tale of fathers and … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Cocteau Kink? “Les parents terribles — The Terrible Parents,” aka “The Storm Within”(1948)

Posted on August 4, 2026 by Roger Moore

One of the most praised French films of its day, Jean Cocteau’s 1948 dark comedy “Les parents terribles” still summons a chuckle or two and a cineaste’s appreciation of its compact, concentrated mise en scene-focused compositions, cinematography and editing. Its … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: A Brit DJ with a Dead Brother hears the Birth of New Wave — Turn Your “Radio On”

Posted on July 19, 2026 by Roger Moore

“Radio On” is an archetypal ’60s “art film” mystery drama released on the cusp of the New Wave ’80s. The tone is downbeat, the story and performances are minimalist and the narrative is literally driven by a 1960 Rover 80 … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review: “Chris and Martina: The Final Set” of a Love Match built on Sportsmanship

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Roger Moore

The recent news that former tennis champ Chris Evert’s cancer has returned for the third time adds more real-life poignance to a lovely new documentary about her and her longtime foe and friend, Martina Navratilova. “Chris & Martina: The Final … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? Dios Mio! Dazzling “I Am Frankelda” loses the Plot

Posted on June 17, 2026 by Roger Moore

The cotton tufts of simulated fog that roll into the stop-motion animated terrors of “I Am Frankelda” can resemble hands of the damned frantically reaching up from the depths of whatever lies below. Vividly-colored sets filled with whimsical human (ish) … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Life Lived on the Margins on an Island off Ireland — “Man of Aran” (1934)

Posted on June 8, 2026 by Roger Moore

Hard lives the way they used to be lived are the subject of documentarian Robert Flaherty’s classic “Man of Aran,” a fictional film capturing the traditions of the past on Ireland’s Aran Islands in the 1930s. A black and white … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review: Celebrating the NBA Player, Coach and GM — “Jerry West: The Logo”

Posted on May 24, 2026 by Roger Moore

“Jerry West: The Logo” is a glossy updating of the timeworn NFL Films era formula of documentaries celebrating athletes. It’s officially sanctioned, touching on only the uncomfortable corners that its subject — NBA legend Jerry West — approved of. West … Continue reading →

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