Cold War transports you back in time not only to mid-20th century history before many of us were born, but back in time to how movies were made actually decades before this one takes place. From 1949 to 1964 we follow Zula (Joanna Kulig) through success and tragedy. After serving time for attacking her father […]
If the worst case scenario is a female driven Heat, that would still be worth doing. There’s more than that going on in Destroyer but if “Female Heat” can get people in the door, that’s already a plus. Det. Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) shows up at a crime scene hungover and staggering. The case she […]
European History was never my best subject in high school. I probably learned more from watching Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth movies but I still couldn’t pass a test. Likewise, Mary Queen Of Scots makes another side of that history more palatable than textbooks and pretentious teachers, but I won’t claim I’m retaining it after the credits […]
After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness, where it won the Audience Award, and winning another at Fantastic Fest, Bodied came to L.A. for AFI Fest. It would win a third Audience Award there, but first director Joseph Kahn and his cast had a Q&A about their battle rap movie. Calum Worthy […]
Thoroughbreds was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival so Focus Features nabbed the distribution rights. It played again at AFI Fest where writer/director Cory Finley spoke in a Q&A following the screening. Olivia Cooke stars as Amanda, a social outcast who goes to Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy)’s house for studying. Despite different backgrounds, the girls […]
Noel Wells’ voice has been sorely missed from Saturday Night Live and the second season of Master of None, so it’s great to get 90 unadulterated minutes of Wells in Mr. Roosevelt. Wells writes, directs and stars in her feature film directing debut. Emily (Wells) is a struggling sketch comedy actor in LA. She returns […]
Paterson is Jim Jarmusch’s Speed. It’s even got an action scene where the bus breaks down and a heroic Adam Driver has to evacuate all the passengers to safety on the sidewalk! Driver plays a bus driver named Paterson in Paterson, New Jersey. He also writes poems which he narrates and which are displayed as […]
There’s nothing Robert De Niro can’t do. If a role requires a new skill, he will immerse himself in that craft and become excellent at it. The Comedian cast De Niro as a standup comic and it is totally worth it to see De Niro do standup comedy. The plot providing the vehicle for the […]
Rules Don’t Apply made me lament all the characters Warren Beatty could have played in the last 15 years but did not. He is very good as Howard Hughes, and could surely bring that to other roles he may not have been directing. Rules Don’t Apply isn’t very extraordinary in any other regard. Hughes (Beatty) […]
This one is really personal for me. Back in 2006 I was saying that these mortgages are crazy and there’s no way the values will match the loans. After it all went down, people said I was only saying that in hindsight, so I can’t win. It seems I was not alone, but when people […]