Review: Part Horror, Part War Movie, Overlord Is a Twisted Affair
I love when a film mixes genres. Even if the blending isn’t wholly successful, it’s always a blast to watch how a filmmaker attempts to make them come together by […]
Review: A Holiday Classic Gets Animated to Great Effect in Illumination’s The Grinch
My biggest issue with the 2000 Ron Howard-directed How the Grinch Stole Christmas was that, because so many of the effects were practical, much of the film is shot in […]
Review: Hal is Filmmaker Hal Ashby’s Work and Life From Those Who Knew Him
Cinematic blindspots, those gaps in our film viewing history that mean we have to sheepishly admit to having not seen a certain classic or a hot new release, are a […]
Review: Actor’s Nephew Attempts to Rewrite a Legend in Making Montgomery Clift
Sometimes, it is possible for a documentary filmmaker to be too close his/her subject. Case in point: Robert Clift, the nephew of the late actor Montgomery Clift, co-directs Making Montgomery […]
Orson Welles Returns With a “New” Film—And You Can See It on the Big Screen
Although it’s also going up on Netflix on Friday, it’s difficult to imagine not having the opportunity to watch a “new” (or at least unreleased) Orson Welles film on the […]
Review: Documentarian Frederick Wiseman Turns His Camera to Middle America in Monrovia, Indiana
At age 88, master documentarian Frederick Wiseman (In Jackson Heights, La Danse, Public Housing) continues his breakneck pace of putting out a new, epic-length documentary film about every year or […]
Review: As Director, Paul Dano Makes Heartbreak Achingly Captivating in Wildlife
Sometimes, when an actor says he or she is actually interested in directing, there’s a collective eye-roll from those within earshot. It’s like a singer saying “But what I really want […]
Review: There’s Little Holiday Joy—And Even Less Sense—in Disney’s The Nutcracker and The Four Realms
It took two people to direct this movie. And not two unknown directors who might have been easily manipulated by the studio, but two talented, established filmmakers—very different filmmakers who […]
Review: As Remakes Go, a New Suspiria is Ambitious, Thrilling and Sometimes Hard to Watch
The reason I’ve never been on the front lines of calling for a ban on remakes in the film world is because sometimes a director manages to take the remake […]
Review: Bohemian Rhapsody Gets a Lot Right, But Isn’t the Whole Queen Story
Whether or not you enjoy Bohemian Rhapsody, the biography film of the band Queen, will likely depend on what kind of movie you’re in the mood to see when you […]
See a 4K Restoration of John Carpenter’s The Fog at Music Box Theatre
For those currently enamored with director John Carpenter’s original 1978 Halloween, you’ll likely be even more impressed (and definitely more terrified) by what was his follow-up feature, 1980’s The Fog […]
Review: Rupert Everett Impresses In Front of and Behind the Camera in The Happy Prince
I’m sure I’m not the first person to make this statement, but there is quite simply no actor on the planet more suited to play the late author/playwright/literary genius Oscar […]