Film – Chuck Koplinski

“Almost, not quite,” sums up Roar Uthaug’s Tomb Raider, another reboot of a long-dormant property that does its best to rekindle the initial fervor surrounding Lara Croft, the video game character that spawned two Angelina Jolie features. Thanks to a fresh take on her origin as well as a winning turn from Alicia Vikander that […]

Though it’s now regarded as a seminal work in the science fiction and young adult genres, Madeleine L’Engle had a difficult time getting A Wrinkle in Time published. It was rejected 26 times, and the author has stated that the reasons she was given was that it was “too different” and “because it deals overtly […]

Depending on which side of the gun control debate you’re on, Eli Roth’s remake of Death Wish couldn’t have come at a better or worse time. Fresh on the heels of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting tragedy, the film will play to viewers as either the ultimate justification for fewer gun regulations or a reason […]

I don’t think that great comedy teams are consciously made; they’re stumbled upon. Case in point, take a look at Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams in John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Game Night, a consistently funny film that embraces its ridiculous nature and runs with it. It’s a movie that has more than its […]

What with computer animation dominating the genre over the past two decades, it’s a bit refreshing to see Aardman Animation still using the charmingly crude claymation that is their stock-in-trade. The herky-jerky, stiff movements of the characters, the layered but hardly meticulous settings, and limited but effective expressions harken to a more labor-intensive aesthetic that […]

Much has already been written about what a game changer Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther is – not simply where superhero movies are concerned, but Hollywood films in general. A celebration of African culture, featuring a cast that consists of almost entirely African-American actors, this is the sort of production the film community has been inching […]

The story of Sarah Winchester and her family fortune is a fascinating one. Upon the death of her husband, William Wirt Winchester, she inherited $20 million (more than half a billion in 2018 dollars), controlled half of the stock in the famous firearms company, and was allotted a daily allowance of $1,000 per day. Having […]

From where I sit, nothing much makes any sense in the world anymore. I understand that I am getting older and find myself committing the sin of doing and thinking all of those things that I said I would never do or think. I understand that I am not changing with the times and am […]

There’s much to like about Scott Cooper’s Hostiles, making it all the more frustrating that it winds up being an incomplete picture. Sporting a $40 million budget and location shooting in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, the film has a naturalistic, epic feel to it that hearkens back to the glory days of the Western. […]

As we all know, expectations are a double-edged sword. While they may inspire us so that we may exceed them, at times they can be so great they simply can’t be overcome. The best example I can think of this, in regards to films, is The Godfather: Part III, an underrated movie that has the […]

The timing couldn’t be better for the release of Steven Spielberg’s The Post, and the director is well-aware of its importance. The script by first-time screenwriter Liz Hannah crossed the filmmaker’s desk in early 2017 and went into production in May. A sprint to get the film released by the end of the year ensued […]

While I wouldn’t call 2017 a great year at the movies (that distinction goes to 1939 or 1968), it was a very, very, very good year, one of surprises, diversity and a sense of steadiness, as there seemed to be something worthwhile to see most of the time. It was a year in which Marvel […]