Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri said, “Writing comes partly out of being wounded by life. The need to create art is connected to a need to heal.” Without a market for her books and Isolated from her literary peers, for Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy, “Ghostbusters”) healing has given way to loneliness, alcohol, and deception….
Two ex-convicts working at a dead-end diner are given an opportunity to change things around when a lawyer proposes a heist, unaware that larger antagonistic machinations are hard at work. While this plotline is fairly standard as far as heist capers are concerned, Hadi Hajaig has cranked the tonal voltage up to eleven by infusing…
“How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?” — Bob Dylan For many, playing a game of soccer on a Sunday afternoon is a pleasant way to spend time with friends before the next work week begins. For a group of undocumented workers living in the Sunset Park neighborhood…
Ignacio “Nacho” Vigalondo is such a breath of fresh air. He values creative concepts and playful storytelling over exhaustive explanations and trite plot turns. He is fully aware of the tropes he’s toying with and knows when to tweak them and by how much. He’s very good at engaging the audience and then recognizing that…
The favorable trend as of late is the recurring gimmick of gender-switching casting in films of previous familiarity. The craze was recently ignited — seemingly — by the 2016 Paul Feig-directed “Ghostbusters” estrogen-driven remake to this year’s earlier released “Overboard” remake with Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez demonstrating the sex role reversal routine. So who…
Despite the way Wonder Wheel crashed and burned during the awards season, I figured it had potential due to it being a Woody Allen production. Although Woody’s a crapshoot for me these days, I never put much faith in the critical consensus around his recent movies (plus this one is about 1950’s Coney Island as…
What is the cost to become beautiful? To be considered beautiful? Deep(ish) questions like that usually reside in dramas, but they can also be thoughtfully explored in comedies. It is this subject (among others like friendship and self-worth) that comedian and actress Amy Schumer tackles in her new film, I Feel Pretty. Although she stumbled…
