Martin Scorsese’s The King Of Comedy remains my favorite of his films. Just as Network presaged the news would devolve into entertainment, Scorsese’s film predicted the consequences of a pop culture-obsessed society in which amorality wins in the end. The rise of Robert De Niro’s Rupert Pupkin, a struggling comic who lives with his mother... Continue Reading →
Mix together The Producers, The Tin Drum, Hope And Glory, Moonrise Kingdom, Life Is Beautiful, The Diary Of Anne Frank, Hogan’s Heroes, Inglourious Basterds, and anything Monty Python and you still would not come close to describing the wondrous tone and sheer brilliance of Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, the winner of the Audience Award at... Continue Reading →
Over the past twenty-plus years, James Gray has established himself has a world class filmmaker with such titles as Little Odessa, Two Lovers, The Immigrant and The Lost City of Z in which he has mastered what I like to call the calm, dreamy epic. His latest, Ad Astra, blends the slow, quiet pacing of... Continue Reading →
Biopics have evolved in recent years favoring a specifically selected moment in their subjects’ lives instead of going for the sprawling epic treatment. Consider the differences between The Last Emperor and Stan & Ollie as one example. What you lose in a comprehensive overview, you gain with more honed dramatic storytelling. The latest example, Judy,... Continue Reading →
As Maya Angelou famously said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Hustlers, the new film from writer/director Lorene Scafaria comes riddled with imperfections. It has too many montages, a few wafer-thin characterizations, plot strands which go... Continue Reading →
Watch a movie closely enough and you’ll notice the best filmmakers share a dialogue with the audience. Expectations get subverted. Winking nods are exchanged. A filmmaker needles, prods, pokes and manipulates. When done effectively, you may feel you’ve gained a new BFF. Although we’ve never met, I feel that way about Brian De Palma, Peter... Continue Reading →
Richard Linklater, one of the most humanistic filmmakers working today, has often explored such themes as time, aging, or the benchmarks in ones lives, such as the last day of High School (Dazed And Confused), a first date (Before Sunrise), or the entire breadth of a child’s life (Boyhood). His films often feel unstructured, laid... Continue Reading →
Sometimes, you can tell from the opening moments of a movie if a filmmaker has “it”. The Peanut Butter Falcon begins with Zak, a young man with Down Syndrome, attempting to escape from an advanced age care facility in North Carolina. He conspires with an elderly woman, who pretends to choke on her pudding, to... Continue Reading →
The poster for Ready Or Not led me to believe a corseted Margot Robbie had opted to star in a period thriller filled with ammo, murder and mayhem. While we do get the tightly-bound dress and bloody killings, the film stars Robbie lookalike Samara Weaving, niece to Hugo Weaving, and is set in modern day.... Continue Reading →
