Yes it's been a long cold winter -- but let's not focus on that-- how about a movie to pull our focus so that we don't even notice! Which brings me to FOCUS starring one of the world's biggest box office stars WILL SMITH and gorgeous Aussie MARGOT ROBBIE, who left the wolves howling on Wall Street [...]
The race is on! Actor Chris Pine and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs have let loose the 2015 Oscar nominations! Who's in? Who's out? Here are the top five categories and my very preliminary two cents worth! BEST PICTURE (including total number of nominations for each) Birdman (9) The Grand Budapest Hotel (9) The Imitation Game (8) Boyhood [...]
BOYHOOD: Richard Linklater's extraordinary "12 years a film" feat! He directed the same cast over a dozen years and captured the ephemeral truth about one boy's childhood and growing up in a broken home. It's a "meta" experience for filmgoers who watch the actors and the characters they play, age on camera over time, while the boy played by the soulful Ellar Coltrane--expressive and [...]
Who cares about the OSCARS-- right now. In fact, regional groups like the BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS have been known to have a major influence on which way the wind blows at Oscar time. So listen up fans, cinephiles and Oscar-ites: WE HAVE SPOKEN. We met today at the hippest hotel in town the REVERE HOTEL [...]
-- This is the first truly great movie of the fall and one of the BEST OF THE YEAR, with OSCAR written all over it. BIRDMAN stars MICHAEL KEATON and a breathtaking cast of actors who knock themselves out in a flabbergastingly audacious backstage look at actors, viral media, critics, fame, art, relationships, truth, artifice, and reality. [...]
Bill Murray is the screen's funniest, most endearing curmudgeon. Here in ST. VINCENT as the title character, he's all pockmarked and rumply, biting the head off every cheerful do-gooder who has the nerve to make conversation. But that title is part of the problem, pretty much giving away the ending and any hope for subtlety. I had been lead to believe otherwise by the first two thirds [...]
Imagine Jane Fonda as a Jewish mother. If you can do that, you'll love THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU. Now imagine that Fonda's children are Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver and Corey Stoll, siblings who all return home --with spouses, kids, girlfriends in tow--after their father has died, and sit shiva for seven [...]
We knew him first as Michael "Meathead" Stivic--Archie Bunker's liberal son-in-law on Norman Lear's iconic TV series ALL IN THE FAMILY. The actor, writer, producer, director eventually went on to helm Oscar-nominated movies THE PRINCESS BRIDE, THIS IS SPINAL TAP, and his masterpiece STAND BY ME, as well as WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, THE AMERICAN [...]
Forgive me my metaphors but CHEF is an absolutely delicious creation, a nicely balanced recipe for entertainment: food, music, and family saga, peppered with a crash course on social media and just the right combination of stars to spice things up! Writer/director Jon Favreau stars as Carl Casper a chef who's stuck in a dead-end [...]
Watching FADING GIGOLO the new movie written, directed by, and starring John Turturrro, is like joining a crazy conversation in progress-- and trying to catch up. Woody Allen plays an old bookseller named Murray-- who is closing up shop, but is hardly out of ideas. In fact, he's got a dilly: he's pitching his friend [...]
