In a phenomenal pairing, two powerhouses of the British stage join forces for a film which depicts the disastrous consequences that occur when their lives unexplainably intertwine. Ian McKellen (“All Is True”) is Roy Courtney, a man with a murky past and plenty of questionable connections. After arranging to have dinner with Betty (Helen Mirren,…
Piggybacking on the commercial (if not critical) success of other overstuffed vignette-driven holiday-centric movies such as “Love, Actually,” “Valentine’s Day,” and “New Year’s Eve,” Berlin, I Love You is the fourth installment in the “Cities of Love” franchise. This iteration, like those lovingly set in Paris, New York and Rio previously, follows way too many…
For anyone willing to get into the Christmas spirit immediately after Halloween (that would be me, at least this year), there’s the arrival of Disney’s festive fantasia The Nutcracker and the Four Realms to help ease the transition from one treat-filled holiday to another. The title may be a mouthful, but the movie is a…
In 1906, in San Jose, California, an impressive, intimidating, and haunting construction project is underway — in fact, this never-ending project is worked on 24 hours a day. After the deaths of her husband and infant daughter, Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren, “Eye in the Sky”) began ordering renovations on the family home. Heiress to the…
There’s no clever way to lead into this, so I’m just going to state it plainly: Collateral Beauty is a disaster in every possible way. Trying to explain why is a tall order, as I will have to disclose core plot details that were cleverly withheld from the misleading trailers. So if you consider that…
Terror demands attention. Terror, as a matter of fact, directly depends on it. Terror counts on your attention — and it is counting on you. The logic of terror follows Freddie Krueger’s logic (Craven’s original Nightmare): If the victim stops paying attention, the monster dissipates in thin air — or so we may be inclined…
While we are now awash in public expressions of hysteria directed towards Muslims, the voice of fear in American society has always been there in one form or another. Witness The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the forced removal of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II, and the on-going discriminatory laws against blacks…
