ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD is easily THE film of the summer, the year thus far, and maybe the decade. It's a climactic showstopper of an achievement, Quentin Tarantino's avowed penultimate 9th movie, a full-to-bursting valentine to movie-making and movie stars, his native Los Angeles, and an industry mirroring the turbulence of a culture [...]
OK. The big night is upon us and it's the wild west out there. Not just the Kevin Hart controversy; the cutting telecast categories controversy; the "only Gaga/Kendrick Lamar can sing" controversy; the "popular" movie category controversy; but also that crazy slate of Best Picture nominees with no front runner! Well, the final ballots are [...]
SO many excellent films came out at the 11th hour-- meaning not until FALL 2018 (ridiculously late I might add), that it has taken me until now to see all the good stuff. Here is a list of my TOP TEN favorite films of 2018. Many of these films allowed us to see ourselves in [...]
What's most remarkable about BLACK PANTHER about the latest Marvel superhero to leap to the big screen is not that it had the biggest pre-sale of any superhero movie in history, not that it features a predominantly black cast and writer/director, is well made, acted, scripted, designed, and directed (it is all of those things) [...]
In one of the more entertaining Oscar nomination ceremonies in recent memory, Andy Serkis and Tiffany Haddish announced the nominations for the 90th Annual OSCARS this morning from California. THE SHAPE OF WATER lead with 13 nominations. By my calculation, there were a few flubs, snubs, & surprises: --Spielberg was snubbed as Best Director for [...]
They didn't make my Five Fave Films of 2017 so far, nor are they all the Boston area Film Critics choices, but here’s another batch of films, like cookies for the holidays-- yummy & crummy; some to be savored, some to be consumed guiltily in the dark, and some cookies, well, should be tossed. [...]
I have been beyond bored with movies this season. THOR still dominates the box office and is playing on 3 screens at my local multiplex. Just not excited about the god of thunder or comedy sequels: DADDY'S HOME 2 (second place at the box office) or A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS both featuring intergenerational hi-jinks at [...]
BLADE RUNNER 2049 continues a tale that asks what it means to be human, but despite being almost an hour longer than the original, is a much more routine experience, building on the first installment without expanding its thematic footprint. The sequel lacks the tension, the mystery, and the emotional resonance of 1982's BLADE RUNNER, but is [...]
A few more SCREEN GRABS in the dog days of summer--and none of the following are dogs: DUNKIRK: If you haven't already, see this masterful and intimate experience of the grueling WWII battle when the Nazis had 400,000 Allied troops-- British, French, and Belgian--trapped on the beach at Dunkirk but they never surrendered; [...]
PATRIOTS DAY--Pointless. If you lived through the Boston Marathon bombings, nothing compares. For all its good intentions and attempts at verisimilitude, this film adds nothing and mutes the impact of that tragic week in Boston's history. It also traffics in some pretty annoying cliches: Boston cops are, apparently, the most foul-mouthed in the country; and only the same roster of actors [...]
