Hollywood Reviews
Review: EMANCIPATION, Brutal Action Filmmaking, Anguished Will Smith
In an alternate, presumably better timeline, Will Smith’s long-expected Oscar win this past spring would not have involved the Slap heard and seen around the world. Instead, Smith would have ignored Chris Rock’s distasteful joke at Jada Pinkett-Smith’s expense, accepted...
Review: WOMEN TALKING, Director Sarah Polley Breaks Out
Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jesse Buckley, Ben Whishaw, and Frances McDormand star in the excellent feminist film.
Review: VIOLENT NIGHT, Die Hard With a Christmas Vengeance
On an event-free morning, afternoon, or possibly evening, longtime friends, high-school classmates, and screenwriting partners Pat Casey and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog I and II) turned to each other and simultaneously said: “What if Die Hard … but with...
Review: THE MENU Expertly Balances Humor and Horror
Hungry for social satire? The Menu is pretty palatable. It follows other recent films pitting the rich against the poor: Ready or Not (2019), The Platform (2019), and Triangle of Sadness (2022) are three examples that do it well. If...
Review: WHITE NOISE, Calculated Comedic Chaos and Commentary
Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig tune in for Noah Baumbach's existential ride.
Review: WEDNESDAY, A Showcase for Jenny Ortega's Considerable Talents
Since New Jersey-born cartoonist Charles Addams’s eponymously named family made the jump from comics to television in 1964 (the brilliantly morbid, short-lived series lives on via syndicated perpetuity), the Addams Family has returned periodically in animated and non-animated form since,...
Review: ECHO 3, They Grabbed My Wife and His Sister. We're Coming For You.
Michael Huisman, Luke Evans and Jessica Ann Collins star in the series, created by Mark Boal and debuting globally on Apple TV+, that aims to explore deeper issues than the action that predominates.
Review: BONES AND ALL, Young Cannibals in Love
Timothée Chalamet reunites with his Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino for another unconventional romance, the cannibal road movie Bones And All, adapted from Camille DeAngelis’ award-winning 2016 novel of the same name. Chalamet is just one...
Review: THE FABELMANS, Dreams Can Also Be Fun
Dreams are scary. In The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg puts his own childhood up on the big screen, through the Dream Factory, with the help of many of his regular collaborators, including screenwriter Tony Kushner (Munich, Lincoln), John Williams (Jaws, Indiana...
Review: STRANGE WORLD, Top-Notch World-Building, A-Level Animation
For Strange World, its 61st feature-length animated film in its 85-year-old history, Disney Animation Studios tapped veteran animator Don Hall (Raya and the Last Dragon, Moana, Big Hero 6) and playwright-turned-screenwriter Qui Nguyen (Raya and the Last Dragon), the former to...
Review: GLASS ONION - A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, Daniel Craig's Super-Sleuth Takes on the One Percent (Again)
Over the last several weeks, the cult of personality centered on onetime tech “genius” (and billionaire) Elon Musk suffered a major setback, a self-inflicted wound that threatened to take down one of the largest, most popular social media platforms. Beware,...
Review: GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO, Stunningly Realized Stop-Motion Animation
There’s a moment in the stunningly realized Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio where the familiar title character (winningly voiced by Gregory Mann), newly granted a semblance of animated life by a compassionate supernatural spirit, attempts to greet his new “father,” Geppetto...
Review: BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER, A Celebration of Legacies Real and Imaginary
The tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman, a generational talent hitting just the prime of what should have been a decades-long, award-filled acting career, in the summer of 2020 came as a devastating blow to many, especially during a year filled...
Now Streaming: THE MOSQUITO COAST Resets the Table
Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman star in the second season of the 'fugitive family' series, premiering on Apple TV+.
Review: ARMAGEDDON TIME, Refracting the Past Through the Eyes of a Young Man
Filmmaker James Gray tells a very personal story, featuring Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Anthony Hopkins.
Review: GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, Superlative Horror in an Anthology Format
Despite winning a Best Director Oscar five years ago for The Shape of Water — what many filmmakers would consider the culmination of their artistic careers — Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, Cronos) shows little, if any,...
Now Streaming: In THE PERIPHERAL, The Future's Not So Bright
Chloë Grace Moretz, Gary Carr and Jack Reynor star in an adaptation of William Gibson's apocalyptic novel, debuting worldwide on Prime Video.
Review: BLACK ADAM, DC's Pre-Modern Anti-Hero Gets the Big-Screen Treatment
After development-related delays stretching back more than a decade, Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson’s belated addition to Warner Bros.'s vaguely defined, loosely connected DCEU (DC Extended Universe), arrives in multiplexes with a mix of anticipation and dread, the former due to...
Review: WENDELL & WILD, A Stop-Motion Roller Coaster
“One scream, and my parents were gone.” After an abrupt car crash (aren’t they all?) a very young girl, Kat, loses her loving, independent and artistic parents. She ends up in “the system,” a series of orphanages and youth detention...
Review: HALLOWEEN ENDS With A Whimper
It’s been a long, strange road for Michael Myers and the Halloween franchise. The longest running major slasher franchise is also the most convoluted; with numerous timelines, retcons, reboots, sequels, requels, and false stops & starts littering its very uneven...
