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“Don’t try to understand it – just rewind and enjoy the ride,” read the headline in U.K. newspaper The Guardian and that in a sentence summed up writer/director Christopher Nolan’s wannabe blockbuster TENET. Only in the inflationary values of the movie business could a film with a global box office take of over $300 million be considered a flop (which is what some in the business are calling…

Film Review in 4 Sentences: “The Mule”

It’s worth the price of admission just to see Clint Eastwood singing Roger Miller’s “Dang Me” as a good ole boy trucker named Earl Stone who sings along to the radio while transporting (ahem) illegal substances from El Paso to somewhere in Mexico. Incredibly, the screenplay (co-written by Gran Torino scripter Nick Schenk) is based on the true story of 91 year old Leo Sharp who worked in a similar…

Quotations from Chairman Chabon …..

(Taken from The Yiddish Policemen’s Union)

“My Saturday night is like a microwave burrito. Very tough to ruin something that starts out so bad to begin with.”

“… along its windowless flank where Yiddish and Roman characters once spelled out the name of the store, there is only a cryptic series of holes, domino pips, a braille of failure.”

“A hope fulfilled is already half a…

A Gerard Butler Movie That Doesn’t Suck The Big One

Wow! (or phrases to that effect) a Gerard Butler movie that doesn’t suck! (You’ll hafta forgive my surprise! I gave up counting at 30 rotten tomatoes.) So how does the Scottish-born hunk keep getting starring roles in movies like (the infamous) Gods of Egypt? Well, his audience ratings are considerably higher. And, after all, it’s the general public which actually buys the tickets …. reviewers…

Bruno Has a “Death Wish”

Bruce Willis and Nicolas Cage have made so many bad movies they have somehow become icons. Go figure. (By that yardstick Jean-Claude van Damme should be an A-Lister.)

Someone in Hollywood (who really should remain anonymous) got the bright idea to revive or, as they say nowadays, “reboot”) the hoary old opus in which Charles Bronson plays a NYC architect who goes on a vigilante tear after his…

Mr. Burke Goes to Nashville

Seemed like everybody wanted to record with the legendary Solomon Burke when he showed up one day in 2006 at Buddy Miller’s recording studio.

The guest list featured singers like Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless and Gillian Welch  and session pros Jim Lauderdale, Al Perkins, Sam Bush and Mickey Raphael. I don’t know if Mr. Miller used a whole lot of studio wizardry but everything…

Da Five Bloods: Over Indulgent?

As viewed thru Caucasian eyes Da Five Bloodswould seem to be self-indulgent. Spike Lee does bring up some valid points but is he preaching to those who have already adopted his view? Possibly. Does the discrepancy between the PC critics ( I mean, what critic would dare criticize a socially conscious Spike Lee film in these troubled times?) and the RT Audience Reviewers (who presumably just want…

Whew! That is Quite a Sentence!

… it was opened by a woman who gave every impression of being in a constant battle with life without necessarily being on the winning side. Anthony Horowitz “The Sentence Is Death” copyright 2019 by Stormbreaker Productions Published by Harper Perennial (Harper Collins)

Reading Craig Johnson During Lockdown

Lately I’ve been watching Longmire (originally on A&E, now on Netflix) while eating my supper on a TV tray. Truth is, I find it to be undemanding entertainment while I’m eating. Although I have to admit that, over time, I have grown attached to stolid ol’ Walt , Deputy Victoria “Vic” Moretti (Katee Sackhoff, unaccountably typecast in sci-fi roles), Deputy Ferguson, usually referred to simply as…

Hannah Gadsby: “Douglas”

Don’t call Nanette “a one woman show”, warns Hannah Gadsby in Douglas (her follow-up piece) or a stand-up comedy monologue. Don’t call it a lecture, either. And above all, Ms. Gadsby resents critics labeling Nanette as a “glorified TED talk.”

Well, whatever it is, it is darn funny, clever and poignant, sometimes all at once. And please allow Ms. Gadsby to have a little swagger. After all, she…

Atlantics: Maybe It’s Just Me

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s me’, says Raylan Givens in Elmore Leonard’s 1993 best-seller Pronto, trying to decipher a cryptic quote on a plaque honoring American poet Ezra Pound.

I felt much the same way after viewing French-Senegalese writer/director Mati Diop’s much praised debut feature Atlantics.

After all, the feature earned a 96% approval rating (142 critics) on Rotten Tomatoes and…

As a youngster I had a crush on Barbara Stanwyck after watching her seduce a boyish and naive Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve (twice! William Demarest’s character was correct. It was the same dame)

She was also beyond beguiling in Ball of Fire and Remember the Night (and, of course, in the all-time classic, 1944’s Double Indemnity.) Columnist Eric Nicol was right – there is nothing sadder than…

Sure. I’m intrigued by Aubrey Plaza’s performances in films like Safety Not Guaranteed, Ingrid Goes West and Hal Hartley’s Ned Rifle but other choices (The To-Do List and Addicted to Fresno come to mind) are, frankly, puzzling.

However, An Evening with Beverly Luff Lin, written and directed by a young Brit named Jim Hosking, may be her most baffling choice to date.

Ms. Plaza essays the…

Adam Sandler Unplugged: A Look at "Uncut Gems"

There is a lot of shouting in Uncut Gems (currently streaming on Netflix) or, as my friend Bob once called it “competitive conversation”.

Perhaps if you were born and raised in New York and its environs you became accustomed to it. Still, it is definitely an acquired taste (and I have spent the past 20 years in a small Canadian town where no one raises their voice – with the possible exception…

Quotations from Chairman Lethem

Taken from “Fortress of Solitude” copyright 2003 by Jonathan Lethem

“Y’all was a couple of yos walking together”

“Buggy might not know it was the Super Bowl, might even think the word was toilet-related, a blue dusty item lining her top shelf, which nobody bought.”

“… He was all grim necessity, a soldier in open ground casting for his next foxhole.”

Stuff I Watch on DVD

THE INSULT

Okay, I admit it. This film came out awhile ago. But in my defense. the library only received it recently (Since the last video store shuttered, the library is my chief source now for DVDs, that and Netflix). Anyway, this film (directed by Ziad Doueri and co-written by Doueri and Joelle Touma) makes for compelling viewing.

How did a dispute over a drainpipe in a small Lebanese…

Quotations from Chairman Ken ….

Taken from AMERICAN SKIN Copyright 2006 by KEN BRUEN (Kate’s Mystery Books/Justin, Charles & Co. Publishers)

“He couldn’t believe it, said

“You’re in America, you don’t want to be armed?”

I shook my head, he hefted the SIG, trying…