The Trailer Park: Full of Laughter and Tears
A trio of legendary performers demonstrate they still have what it takes to make moviegoers laugh and cry. Now in their golden years, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro promise to make this a...
View Article‘The Intern’ Review: Interminable and Inconceivable
Stale, safe and manipulative, ‘The Intern’ is the cinematic equivalent of an exhausted sigh from a collection of filmmakers and actors who just don’t seem to care about what they’re doing. It’s a movie...
View Article‘Heist’ (2015) Review: Why?
With a title as generic as ‘Heist’, you know you’re in for a rough watch (unless it’s David Mamet’s ‘Heist’, which sadly is not the case today). This is a film so tediously lame and formulaic that it...
View Article‘Joy’ Review: Messy Tale of Mop Maven
‘Joy’ is above all else an ambitious movie. It’s writer/director David O. Russell’s ode to the plight of independent women, the struggle of outsiders, the necessary pain of family, the battle to...
View Article‘Dirty Grandpa’ Review: Bad De Niro, Very Bad De Niro
‘Dirty Grandpa’ is a flat-out horrible movie. Stale, unfunny and offensive in unintentional ways, it’s the nadir of the contemporary R-rated comedy. The pain of sitting through this nonsense is made...
View Article‘Hands of Stone’ Review: Head of Air
‘Hands of Stone’, Hollywood’s latest uninspired boxing melodrama, is a big, long, sweeping affair. Robert De Niro has a supporting role, just in case anyone considers that a selling point anymore. What...
View Article‘The Comedian’ Review: Former King of Comedy Dies on Stage
Remember in 2015 when Al Pacino made that embarrassing comedy ‘Danny Collins’ in which he played an aging rock star learning how to love again? No? Doesn’t surprise me. It was terrible. I wish I could...
View ArticleOff the Shelf: Ronin
Although it wasn’t much of a box office smash back in 1998, John Frankenheimer’s action thriller Ronin eventually became a cult hit on video, largely due to its terrific car chases. The film has been...
View ArticleBlu-ray Highlights: Week of December 9th, 2018 – Minty Fresh
Considering how frequently we hear dire news about the market for physical media dying, it sure doesn’t seem like the volume of new Blu-ray and Ultra HD releases has slowed down at all. Quite the...
View ArticleThe Crazy Eighties: Angel Heart
From the kiddie gangster spoof Bugsy Malone to the school musical Fame to the acid trip extravagance of Pink Floyd: The Wall, British director Alan Parker had one of the most eclectic careers in...
View ArticleTIFF Journal: Joker
Midway through Joker, Joaquin Phoenix dances as he traipses down a New York staircase, and the soundtrack pounds to “Rock and Roll Part 2,” an anthem played at almost every sports arena for decades....
View ArticleNYFF Journal: The Irishman
With a running time of just under 3 ½ hours, I’m less time away from The Irishman writing this review than it took to watch the film, yet even in these moments following the first screening, it feels...
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