Film – Chuck Koplinski

While watching any movie, viewers should never be conscious of the process that goes into its making. No matter what the film, an illusion of reality – whatever “reality” said production has adopted – should be established and maintained throughout.  Nary a thought should be given as to how an effect has been achieved or […]

Todd Phillips’ Joker arrives in theaters having already created a wave of protests and social media outrage that the titular character would be proud of. Some critics who have seen it are concerned that its content may incite violence, as the fear is that some may embrace the chaos the Crown Prince of Crime creates […]

Is there more to James Grey’s Ad Astra than meets the eye?  Or is there less? It’s something I’ve been turning over and over in my mind since seeing it a week ago.  I suppose the fact that I am still thinking about it, when so many movies are forgotten by the time I get […]

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I have never seen a single episode of the hit PBS series “Downton Abbey.”  I don’t know a Crawley from a Talbot and whether the show has been on two seasons or six, I couldn’t tell you.  I do know that everyone loves Maggie Smith […]

Much like It, Andy Muschietti’s follow-up, Chapter 2, is a triumph of production design, a meticulously rendered, at times morbidly beautiful film that is never less than captivating to look at.  Whether it be the make-up effects that bring its villainous clown Pennywise to life, the rundown, hovel-chic house where he resides or the elaborately […]

The power in Paul Down Colaizzo’s Brittany Runs a Marathon comes from the fact that we so easily identify with the titular character, a young woman who isn’t living her life as much as floating through it.  She makes no conscious choices where the direction of her life is concerned; she allows herself to be […]

I have a feeling audiences are going to respond quite favorably to Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Ready or Not.  Very clever, darkly funny and tautly constructed, the film not only delivers a fair amount of thrills but manages to be merciless in its approach to the 1%, showing what unconscionable lengths they will go […]

Films such as The Peanut Butter Falcon are tricky when it comes to setting the proper tone and treating its subject and story with respect.  Centered on a young man with Down syndrome, works of this sort run the risk of being too cute and using characters as punch lines or becoming so melodramatic that […]

There’s much of what you’d expect in Good Boys and a bit of what you wouldn’t.  Produced by the same crew that brought us Superbad (2007) and concerning three middle schoolers, you know there will plenty of raunchy jokes, physical gags and questionable humor throughout.  The screenplay by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy certainly doesn’t […]

As a Bruce Springsteen fan, I was really looking forward to Gurinder Chadha’s Blinded by the Light, a film based on the life of writer Sarfraz Manzoor, who cites the musician’s work as a profound influence on his life.  Based on the Boss’s songs, which play throughout, the movie follows one young man’s journey towards […]

It’s rare that I have the reaction to a movie that I had to Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Adapted from the novel by Maria Semple, this story of a woman who puts her career to the side in order to raise her daughter, only to find herself adrift and unstable years later as […]