Cinemascoping

  Alex Honnold is not like you or me.  Sure, the fact that he climbs mountains is one of the obvious things that separate him from the pack, but even within the climbing community, he’s regarded as unique. He climbs free solo (without ropes, harnesses or any other safety devices), a method less than one […]

There’s a calmness about director Barry Jenkins that belies his enthusiastic approach to his work.  Upon arriving in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria in Chicago, he nearly gets lost in the crowd at a coffee counter, the other patrons completely unaware of the Oscar-winner in their midst. But at soon as we sit down together […]

After having examined the dehumanizing effects of prison (Hunger), the inescapable quality of sexual addiction (Shame) and the heinous nature of American slavery (12 Years a Slave), tackling a heist film seems beneath Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen. Yet there’s much more at play in his latest, “Widows” than meets the eye. 
 Based on the […]

Having shocked the movie world with the success of Halloween in 1978, John Carpenter’s big-screen follow-up was a relatively exorbitant production by comparison. With $1 million at his disposal – three times the budget of Halloween – the filmmaker set out to make a good old-fashioned ghost story, a movie short on plot and long […]

 The piece of advice that actor Ryan Gosling and director Damien Chazelle must be following is, “Make no small plans.” It seems fitting as their second collaboration, after coming off the Academy Award winning La La Land is First Man, an adaptation of James R. Hansen’s massive biography of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man […]

There’s something very interesting at play in Brian Henson’s The Happytime Murders, which is really more a temper tantrum than a movie.  The son of the beloved Jim Henson, the trailblazer who created the Muppets, is in a rebellious state of mind, as he seems intent on crapping all over his father’s work.  While steps […]

I’ve seen my share of dog-and-his-boy stories and Albert Hughes is worse than some but better than most.  Taking place some 20,000 years ago during the last Ice Age, this unique setting helps distinguish it from similar tales, providing a fresh set of perils where viscous predators and securing a food supply is concerned, while […]

One sign of a good salesman is the ability to take something old and sell it as something new.  If you’re able apply a little bit of razzle dazzle, some misdirection and some shiny ribbon per se to make the consumer think that they’ve never seen what’s being peddled before, instill a sense of urgency […]

If you haven’t gotten your fill of the Hallmark Channel – and really, could anyone ever sate their craving for the banal – “Dog Days” is for you. Sweet, predictable and just so, so cute, this sit-com writ large will appeal to those seeking nothing more than a pleasant excuse to get out of the […]

It was Mark Twain who pointed out that truth is stranger than fiction and were he alive today, he would point to Tim Wardle’s compelling documentary Three Identical Strangers as proof. What begins as an examination of an incredible coincidence turns into an examination of the question of whether nature or nurture is more significant […]

Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You has been compared to last year’s lighting rod examination of modern race, Jordan Peele’s Get Out and it’s easy to see why.  The protagonists in each unwittingly find themselves in the midst of a white nightmare in which they may be consumed, their race and personality erased by personal compromise […]