Search for 2019

The Oscar triumph of Green Book and box office success of The Upside reflects a thirst among some movie-goers for stories about racial harmony. The Best of Enemies arrives into this environment intent on hydrating psyches parched by the race-re...

At some point during its development, Blackbird, an English-language re-imagining of the 2014 Danish movie Silent Heart, was probably envisioned as Oscar bait. That’s the inevitable result of putting together a cast comprised of A-list actor...

Blinded by the Light is a one-third Bruce Springsteen hagiography, one-third kitschy ‘80s recreation, and one-third feel-good father/son coming together. Surprisingly, however, it works. The movie combines an infectious spirit with a serious...

As a dramatic re-creation of the events leading up to the July 2016 ouster of Fox News honcho Roger Ailes, Bombshell is effective cinema. However, for those familiar with the situation (either from reading about it or following it contemporane...

In a way, it’s surprising that it has taken this long for someone to make a female-oriented version of Greg Mottola’s 2007 high school comedy Superbad. Perhaps the best way to describe Booksmart, the assured directorial debut of actress O...

Brightburn can at least boast an interesting premise – not that it does anything with it. The underlying conceit is as simple as it is pregnant with promise: what if a Superman type, having arrived on Earth as an infant in a space capsule, w...

If I was to review Giuseppe Capotondi’s The Burnt Orange Heresy based exclusively on the film’s first half, I would have nothing to offer but raves. Unfortunately, the film’s final 30 minutes prove unable to deliver on the promise of the...

With the introduction of Captain Marvel into an already crowded field, the MCU has become unbalanced. Ordinary villains might as well give up and conventional heroes can retire. For decades, Warner Brothers/DC has had trouble figuring out how ...

The scenario presented in Captive State would almost certainly have worked better in a mini-series format. The filmmakers’ low-budget approach of minimizing special effects might have allowed for an expansion of the narrative over a six or ei...

For 2019’s Big Holiday Musical Extravaganza, Hollywood has gone all the way back to 1981 to choose the source material. The concept of making a motion picture version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s immensely successful stage play, Cats, has both...