Documentary movies are elusive things. Docs about music festivals maybe even more so.
A doc like D.A. Pennebaker's MONTEREY POP captures amazing performances at the 1967 Monterey Pop festival from 1960's luminaries like The Mamas & the Papas, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar and others. And you do, in its most transcendent moments, feel like you are experiencing it as the audience experienced it.
At the same time…
Read MoreHoly sh*t.
Writer/director Zach Cregger comes out of comedy. And it's this skill set that may have made him uniquely able to make one of the most terrifying horror movies of the last ten years.
Although we have no intention of spoiling the MANY surprises this movie has in store for you, we may have to tread lightly around and hint at a few. So if you just want to go into this movie cold, stop here. It's worth it.
If you're review proof, let's tread into the darkness down this tunnel a bit further...
Read MoreJacques Audiard's musical-transgender drug cartel boss-nearly all female focused movie is audacious. Which is to be expected from Audiard who has defined his career since 2009's UN PROPHETE with movies of wild ambition, different genres, great risks.
And while this writer watched the movie, slapping his forehead numerous times at the crazy choices, EMILIA PEREZ does pass the simple (and most important) question:
Does it work…
Read MoreThis movie is an amazing A CHRISTMAS CAROL variation for New Year's Eve with some pretty heavy, intense themes.
Family dysfunction, alcoholism, infidelity, narcissism, total selfishness. Leave it to the Swedes to make Ebeneezer Scrooge look like Abraham Lincoln compared to David Holm (played the movie's director (!!) Victor Sjostrom).
The premise is genius high concept…
Read MoreNot sure how this movie got a PG-13 if internet research is to be trusted. To this audience member, I SAW THE TV GLOW is straight up R: horrific, intense, and great. Hell, the main character cuts open their own chest in close up at one point.
A nightmare factory, the movie operates in the subterranean maze of the subconscious and the psychological.
In many ways, Jane Schoernbrun's I SAW THE TV GLOW may be one of THE discovery movies of 2024. It …
Read MoreClint Eastwood's most recent JUROR #2 is a strange movie at war with itself. And that's mostly a good thing.
The premise is a bit ridiculous then underplayed to maintain the tone. And yet, it is still a well-directed, well-acted, effective work about the horrible horrible gray area of the law, justice, conscience, facts.
Ultimately, it's about one of the toughest of all human conundrums: what is the right thing to do?
The movie follows …
Read MoreGerman born emigre director Ernst Lubitsch is rightly considered one of the brightest stars in the classic Hollywood filmmaking firmament.
He had such an innate sense of the intrinsic qualities of cinema that he became Paramount's head of production in the mid 1930's WHILE still directing movies (though he was fired a year later because he couldn't delegate). Lubitsch was a wunderkind like Irving Thalberg or Steven Spielberg or Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick. A savant of cinema.
One of his proteges, world class moviemaker Billy Wilder…
Read MoreFirst, this is a dynamite movie.
Second, maybe don't watch this movie when eating leftovers for lunch.
Coralie Fargeat's THE SUBSTANCE is powered by a rage so palpable that…
Read MoreIn some strange way, the question of relevancy in pop culture has been rendered irrelevant.
We live in beyond the looking glass times where concerted efforts appear to be made to make us all discouraged, confused, disheartened, disoriented in the surrealism of the current moment.
But, as always, even those factors have to …
Read MoreLike our review of Jason Reitman's SATURDAY NIGHT, Edward Berger's meticulous, engrossing CONCLAVE, about a fictitious election of a new pope beset by mystery, scandal, and intrigue, is a kind of cinematic comfort food.
And again, that's not a bad thing. CONCLAVE is an excellent movie that smuggles in intriguing ideas under the cloak of a 70's style Alan J Pakula (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, KLUTE) thriller.
It's also …
Read MoreThe movie follows beleaguered but determined SNL creator/producer Lorne Michaels (a surprisingly agile Gabrielle LaBelle) as he fights battles on numerous fronts to willpower his show to air at 11:30pm live on television despite everyone and everything saying it can't be done.
The movie is at once…
Read MoreAs we gather ‘round the cinema family table for Thanksgiving 2024, we find a cinematic family in flux.
Some at the table say the family has disbanded. Some say the family will never die. Some say viva the family! Each feels the truth of what they say in their hearts. Who’s right? Is everyone right? Is everyone wrong?
Will this Cinematic Thanksgiving devolve into tense family squabbling? Will the cinematic Turkey be dry and overcooked? I hate an overcooked cinematic Turkey!
Well, I’m gonna stop the extended allegory train before it crashes and focus it down.
I’d like to offer a little Cinematic Thanksgiving prayer if I could.
Thank you …
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