The Democratic National Convention met in Chicago in August 1968 to choose their presidential candidate in a tumultuous year that saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Prague Spring, and growing protests in cities around the world against the escalation of the Vietnam War. Although…
Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One is nothing short of biblical for the pop culture enthusiast. More surprisingly, however, is the engaging narrative and even the likable cast of (young) characters. The expensive movie ran Warner Bros. $175 million, but Spielberg’s project does reap the benefits of that expense — with stellar CGI and a virtual…
One of the important messages of Thank You for Your Service, first-time director Jason Hall’s perceptive drama about the physical and psychological effects of war, is that returning veterans need to be able to talk about what happened in combat and how they have been personally affected by it. Too often, however, friends or loved…
Based on a popular graphic novel by Marasume Shirow and directed by Rupert Sanders (“Snow White and the Huntsman”), Ghost in the Shell is a visually stunning experience with a fine core performance by Scarlett Johansson (“Captain America: Civil War”), but it borrows so much of other, mostly better science fiction films and TV series,…
Every dog movie has its day . . . except for THIS one. If one was upset and heartbroken when the canine in “Marley & Me” was put down at the end, then prepare to be even more aghast when FOUR dogs come and go in this latest Universal release, A Dog’s Purpose, directed by…
Ah, what would this time of the season be without another motion picture featuring sex, drugs, rock and roll (and loud, annoying rap, to boot), fights, prostitutes, female pimps, gun threats, corporate layoffs, drunk driving (among other idiotic things committed while intoxicated), psychological disorders, sacrilegious sequences, rampant vulgarity, sexual harassment, child abuse, serious physical and…
Imagine if “Rear Window” were in motion, the fragmented but persistent yearning to see given (literal) added dynamism. What we glimpse through windows is always partial, but if viewed from a moving train the glimpse is even more fleeting. Then replace James Stewart in a wheelchair with Emily Blunt addled by alcohol and you have…
