I don’t mind telling you, when I hear the words, “spin-off,” regarding film or television, I don’t get the best of feelings. The history of the term (which I will not go into here) conjures up as many negative thoughts as does the phrase, “third movie in a film franchise series.” Still, being the profession…
J. C. Chandor’s New York drama, A Most Violent Year, is a misleadingly titled film, as its timeframe only covers a month and there is very little physical violence. While the title references the exceptionally high crime rate of New York in 1981, the film itself is an intriguing study of different types of violence,…
As the sly penguins have outgrown their “Madagascar” roots so have the lovable minions of “Despicable Me.” Taking place before the days of Gru (although it may end with his being involved), the Twinkie-shaped, mumbling servants are getting their own movie aptly titled Minions to go on a comical adventure to search for an evil…
The plot summary provided for Darkness Descends by writer / actor Frank Krueger seems determined to leave audiences underwhelmed. The summary talks of wars declared and the possibility of New York City itself being torn apart, and yet the film never quite lives up to these expectations. Rather — even if we ignore the ambitions…
The 1920’s were the culmination of the greatest wave of immigration in American history in which more than 25 million people arrived, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, to escape the aftermath of the Great War and its resulting poverty and oppression, or simply to embrace the promise of the “American Dream.” Many of these…
Folk music has been around ever since there have been folks, but the folk revival of the 1960s was due in large part to the increased topicality of the songs and their relevance to the changing times. Though singers such as Joan Baez and Ian & Sylvia among others continued to sing traditional ballads, singer/songwriters…
At first I was going to start my review of All is Bright by remarking that Paul Rudd has the worst Canadian accent I’ve ever heard spoken by a Canadian. Then I realized he was born up the street from me in New Jersey, so that blew that observation out of the water. Now, I’ll…
