Chuck Koplinski

Gosling and Blunt keep Guy on track David Leitch’s The Fall Guy is a true tribute to the stunt performers who risk life and limb to make their on-screen counterparts look good. A former stuntman himself, the director’s inside knowledge proves invaluable in bringing not simply a verisimilitude to the film but an appreciation for […]

Though I was physically exhausted at the end of the fourth day, I was culturally rejuvenated once the 15th Annual Turner Classic Movies Film Festival wrapped up. Seeing classic movies in period film palaces reminded me of the power of cinema as well as the joy that comes from seeing them with an appreciative and […]

Less-is-more approach helps Hero Abraham Lincoln once said, “No man is poor who has a Godly mother.” Truer words were never spoken where the Smallbone family is concerned. The matriarch of the family, Helen, held her family together after her husband’s business failed and their house was foreclosed on, then moved to the United States […]

Fact-based Ministry a rousing effort Based on the book of the same name and recently unclassified documents, Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the latest fact-based entertainment to hit the big screen. It’s 1942 and England is on the ropes in its conflict with the Axis powers. Bombing raids have put the populace […]

The Turner Classic Movies Film Festival begins on April 18 in Hollywood, the 15th annual event kicking off with a 30th anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction. John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel and other cast members will be in attendance. What with the festival’s theme of “Most Wanted: Crime and Justice in […]

Intimacy the key to Arcadian’s success Director Benjamin Brewer and writer Michael Nilon cover familiar ground in Arcadian, a dystopian drama that focuses on one family’s efforts to survive against insurmountable odds. John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place will likely come to mind often, yet Brewer finds a unique approach to hook us, doing a fine […]

Letters an entertaining tale of slander and pain In 1920, a scandal broke out in Littlehampton, England, that rocked the community to its core and resulted in two sensational trials that left its citizens in shock and disbelief. A series of anonymously written letters had been sent to Edith Swan and her family, missives that […]

Redemption elusive in Sinners People build legacies in different ways. Some have a large family. Some pour their energy into their work. Others devote their lives to the church. Then there are those who spend all their time doing charitable works. Finbar Murphy’s legacy is something quite different. In a remote part of a forest […]

Sweeney saves Immaculate Sporting an adept inversion of a 1970s horror film trope, Michael Mohan’s Immaculate is a lean, efficient shocker propelled by an innovative plot that’s so clever, you’ll likely forgive the liberties screenwriter Andrew Lobel takes in the third act. In many ways. Cecilia’s (Sydney Sweeney) path toward becoming a nun seems preordained. […]

Zone a powerful examination of the callousness of evil The Hoss household is very much like yours and mine. The mother, Hedwig, worries about her children, has to make sure that meals are prepared on time, the garden is tended to and is preparing for a visit from her mother. Her husband, Rudolf, is consumed […]

Uninhibited Cena gives life to Stanicky Like many of the Farrelly brothers’ early movies (Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, Stuck on You) Ricky Stanicky is tasteless, sophomoric, offensive and ham-fisted. It’s also smart, poignant, inclusive and one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in quite some time. On a fateful Halloween night Dean, […]

Dune: Part Two an astounding, cinematic experience There’s no lack of ambition where Denis Villeneuve’s epic adaptation of Dune: Part Two is concerned. Instead of shrinking from the task of bringing a complete-as-possible version of Frank Herbert’s complex sci-fi epic to the screen, he rises to the task again and again, not only in his […]