Frank Ochieng has been an online movie reviewer for various movie outlets throughout the years before coming on board at CMC. Previously, Frank had been a film critic for The Boston Banner (now The Bay State Banner) urban newspaper and had appeared on Boston's WBZ NewsRadio 1030 AM for an 11-year run as a recurring media commentator/panelist on the "Movie/TV Night" overnight broadcasts. He is a member of the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Internet Film Critics Society (IFCS). Frank is a graduate of Suffolk University in the historic section of Boston's Beacon Hill.
In the current stressful climate of cautious people keeping their safe distance from one another because of a crippling pandemic, it is bewildering to think an off-the-wall, road trip sex comedy involving mismatched personalities would suffice to ease the blues of quarantine. Nonetheless, co-writer/director Nico Raineau’s loose-minded sex farce, Hooking Up, looks to do just…
Most Christian faith-based films mean well and have the best of intentions in terms of the inspiration it preaches to its targeted audiences. However, filmmaking brothers Andrew and Jon Erwin (“I Can Only Imagine”) go so much further, delivering with odd conviction, a saccharine-coated, religious-themed love story that taps more sap than that found in…
It is a reunion of sorts for those connected to the witless cop caper Spenser Confidential. First, the film’s star, Mark Wahlberg, returns home to his beloved Boston as the famed native son struts his reckless stuff around Beantown. Second, the film’s director, Peter Berg, reunites with Wahlberg, his “Mile 22,” “Patriots Games,” “Deepwater Horizon,”…
Late filmmaker Horace B. Jenkins’ early eighties African-American racially driven romantic drama Cane River gets a new lease on life with its millennium-era restored release nearly four decades after its attempted initial run. Indeed, Cane River epitomizes the smooth, but potently observational, character study of black division and togetherness — all under the complicated umbrella…
The Assistant is no doubt the ultimate reflection of the current times, where the implication of sexual harassment — in part due to the #MeToo Movement — is at its highest alert. In it, filmmaker Kitty Green (“Casting JonBenet”) delves into the tattered psyche of a young woman destined for career-oriented greatness, but gets caught…
The World War II satire Jojo Rabbit is a daring mockery with war-themed carnage as a surreal backdrop that combines misplaced idolization with an unconventional coming-of-age tale for a young boy. Indeed, filmmaker Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok”) is wading in rough waters with a strange take of unusual growing pains — particularly when his featured…
For the most part, hard luck familial dramas have the potential for being notoriously manipulative on an emotional scale. However, when done remarkably well — with the right precision of pathos and truth — such melodramas can resonate and overcome their soapy constraints. Director/co-writer Jake Scott (“Welcome to the Rileys”) oversees such a one with…
