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.
When spotlighting the dysfunctional familial factors in a period piece film set against the background of retro-urban rambunctiousness, it is a creative challenge to balance the ingredients involved: Underlying marital strife, sibling rivalry, adultery, emotional stagnation and fragile relations. In co-writer/director Gillian Robespierre’s nostalgic mid-nineties comedy, Landline, we are whisked back to a “vintage” time…
Can an independent comedy about 14th-century religious debauchery involving naughty nuns be a legitimate rib-tickler in a sluggish summer movie season of wacky, yet toothless, farces (e.g., “The House”)? Refreshingly it can be, especially if it is writer-director Jeff Baena’s boisterous and bawdy The Little Hours, a corruptible comedy that brings its satirical cynicism to…
Inspirational dramas are inherently uplifting, motivational and psychologically gripping. Their feel-good elements or inevitable triumph-into-tragedy climaxes are the functional foundations behind rewarding, emotionally-charged cinema. However, tear-jerking tales of adversity sometimes often fall into the realm of derivative dramatics that register in mawkishness despite their well-intentional pursuit of truthful sentimentality. Writer-director T.C. Christensen’s (“The Cokeville Miracle”)…
The craps-shooting, comedy caper, The House, is a bad gamble for former “Saturday Night Live” alums Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. The betting windows tell a tepid tale of strained, transparent chuckles in this limp-minded, suburban satire that rolls the so-called humor dice to no avail. The mixture of collegiate financial desperation, spoof-inspired small-time mobsters,…
Filmmaker Sofia Coppola is a mixed bag in terms of her big screen artistry as both an actress and movie-making siren. Specifically, Coppola’s auteur skills can run rather cold and dismissive (penning the flat and forgettable costume saga “Marie Antoinette”) or can inspire unexpected hypnotic greatness of roguish contemplation and isolation (as demonstrated in her…
The core of any filmmaker’s soul is to commit and explore the realm of a targeted subject matter regardless of said filmmaker’s familiarity with the material at hand. Well, Irish filmmaker Graham Jones (“How to Cheat in the Leaving Certificate”) does not disappoint with his latest go-around regarding adventurous youth and the creative spirit in…
Animated films aimed at children are sometimes made to the detriment of the trapped grown-ups that have to accompany their restless tykes and endure the relentlessly silly-minded, junior-sized high jinks. However, there are a few animated films that can equally draw in the impish impulses of both the giddy child and sensible adult alike —…
