The most dramatic sequences of 2018’s Best Picture, “Green Book,” involved the piano playing of Doctor Don Shirley. In another recent awards winner, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the recreations of Freddy Mercury’s performances proved to be a high point. These sequences, well-rendered by directors Peter Farrelly and Bryan Singer, respectively, are put into the shade of the…
I’m not totally sure if A Vigilante — the feature debut from writer-director Sarah Daggar-Nickson — is meant to be soaked up as entertainment so much as a reconciliation between movies-as-art and movies-as-therapy. The small-scale story is interested in a single dominating issue, that of domestic violence, though in ways that feels inconsistently intentioned, despite…
The ongoing “Ip Man” movie franchise, essentially a series of increasingly fictional biopics about the martial arts master most famous for teaching a young Bruce Lee, has long been a solid source of slickly spectacular set pieces. Now, the tradition continues in the spin-off Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy, another action extravaganza pitting a…
With Brightburn, David Yarovesky presents a welcomed twist to the superhero genre with his anti-superhero/horror hybrid that presents the perfect elevator pitch of what would happen if Superman wanted to hurt people instead of help them. Affiliated with eclectic director James Gunn (credited as a producer), Yarovesky is no stranger to the superhero genre having…
Interestingly, it is the audience who seems to be the ones getting hustled in director Chris Addison’s forgettable feminine con-artist comedy, The Hustle. In it, Oscar winner Anne Hathaway (“Les Misérables”) and funny fireball Rebel Wilson (“Isn’t It Romantic”) are paired as a couple of cute scammers looking to manipulate the finances out of clueless…
John Chester (“Rock Prophecies”), a nature cinematographer, and his wife Molly, a private chef and food blogger, had always dreamed of buying a farm and moving out of their cramped Santa Monica apartment, yet there was always a reason to put it off. The catalyst that changed their life forever, however, was a black dog…
To describe Booksmart as “Superbad” with girls is to be reductive and overly simplistic. Nonetheless, it is a not inaccurate description of Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, due to its winning combination of coming of age trials and tribulations, the strains upon teenage friendship and profane humor. However, these elements are combined in such a way…
