J.C. Chandor’s (“All Is Lost”) Amazonian heist thriller, Triple Frontier, has a stellar cast and equally impressive cinematography — as some of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars traverse South American rainforests and mountainous peaks to lift hundreds of millions of dollars off a local drug lord. While some of the narrative feels somewhat tired — as…
For a film with a tantalizing title like Velvet Buzzsaw, it sure is disappointing. What a shame. The talented cast, with the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal (“Stronger”), Rene Russo (“Thor:The Dark World”), Toni Collette (“Hereditary”) and a criminally underutilized John Malkovich (“Warm Bodies”), try their best to salvage the poorly thought-out narrative. However, it is…
Arena lights are off, locker rooms are empty and primetime TV slots are dotted with holes. We don’t have to be told that explicitly in Steven Soderbergh’s (“Unsane”) confidently insightful new film High Flying Bird. Curiously empty New York City sidewalks and forlorn attitudes tell us what we need to know: Professional basketball games are…
The documentary genre has experienced a bit of a resurgence in 2018 and capitalizing on that, Netflix is swooping in at the start of the year with another original deep-dive of their own, this one concentrated on the events leading up to, making up and resulting from 2017’s Fyre Festival fiasco. And like the organizers…
At a time when typical Hollywood fare consists of retreads and blockbusters aimed at mass markets, introspective and highly personal films have become increasingly rare. That alone is reason to celebrate Alfonso Cuarón’s (“Gravity”) Roma, an intimate journey that draws on the director’s memory of a childhood filled with domestic turmoil as well as a…
There’s a conundrum going into David Romero’s Making Fun: The Story of Funko, at least from a critical aspect. The issue is perspective. Documentaries like this work better when there’s a sense of objectivity and recollection. If this were made say, 10-20 years from now, we’d probably have a better sense as to where Funko…
Not since “The Electric Horseman” in 1979 have we had the distinct pleasure of seeing two outstanding actors, Robert Redford (“All Is Lost”), now 81, and Jane Fonda (“Youth”), now 79, working together in the same film. That situation has now changed with the release of Our Souls at Night, directed by Ritesh Batra whose…
