Stop the presses, hold the phone, and crank up the AC. Hell hath frozen over: Donald Trump was correct about something. Not the broken-clock kind of correct. God knows Donnie Dimwit couldn’t keep up the blistering pace of being right twice a day. He’s lucky if he’s right twice a month. But last week, in …
Netflix has been thriving on the woman-in-peril sub-genre of filmmaking. It found an unexpected smash in Birdbox, starring Sandra Bullock as a mother fleeing unseen demons. It bought the TV show You, a half-season flop about a stalker boyfriend, from the Lifetime network and turned it into a series already greenlit for a second season. Which …
Here’s the recipe for a summer buddy-cop film. One guy, usually the cop, is as big as a house with an inclination to break things: rules, orders, villains’ faces. The other guy is typically much smaller and much funnier and kind of goofy — and he’s driving the other guy nuts, even as circumstances …
What do you call a movie that is so well-meaning it’s hard to criticize, yet so sporadic in execution it’s hard to be effusive? In this case, you call it Skin in the Game, a nobly-intended thriller about human trafficking that tackles an issue long deserving big-screen Hollywood treatment, but undercut by tropes that veer it …
It’s can be difficult to watch When They See Us, but it’s certainly not for lack of craftsmanship. Ava DuVernay’s direction and writing pulls no punches in laying out the harrowing events endured by the Central Park Five while adding a necessary layer of humanity to their story that challenges viewers to reconsider what it means …
You’d be forgiven if you didn’t know the music band Bros. In the late 1980s, Bros were the hottest act in British pop. The twin brothers played to sold-out concerts, top ten chart hits and the undying devotion of screaming, swooning fans, dubbed “Brosettes.” Though they enjoyed Beatle-like mania, Matt and Luke Goss called it …
You don’t have to be a dog nut to enjoy Netflix’s new series It’s Bruno! But it sure doesn’t hurt. Otherwise, how else could we feel the offense taken by series creator Solvan “Slick” Naim when he sees dog owners who don’t curb their pooches? Or people who don’t restrain yapping pets? Or, worst of …
Dead to Me is something of bait-and-switch, though a clever and enjoyable one. The trailer for the new Netflix series suggests that it’s a black comedy, a Desperate Housewives meets Six Feet Under with a touch of suburban angst mixed to keep things light. Instead, Dead becomes a sometimes-profound look at the stages of grief …
Here’s looking at you, Wick. Part grisly Casablanca, part bloody Blade Runner and part macabre Matrix, the elements combine to make John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum an epic of choreographed mayhem and the best action film of the year. Endgame schmendgame. Directed by Keanu Reeves’ Matrix stunt double-turned-action auteur Chad Stahelski, Parabellum mixes terrific CGI …
The risk of making “based on true events” films is that sometimes the real events are more interesting than the fictional ones — and make for more entertaining moviegoing. Take Man on Wire, an Oscar-winning documentary about a tight rope walker who crossed New York’s Twin Towers on a cable. The film was naturally followed …
The Hollywood Bowles 