Review THE FAREWELL. Lulu Wang’s The Farewell opens on a phone call between Billi (Awkwafina) in New York and her grandmother Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) in China. It’s a charming, relatable exchange with Nai Nai warning her granddaughter about the dangers she’s heard of in the city and Billi reassuring her. It’s also a volley […]
Fortuna Theatre
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Lady in Waiting
Review OPHELIA. As the title character of Ophelia tells us at the outset, “It is high time I should tell you my story myself.” So begins this re-telling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one that adds dimension and depth to its characters. Shakespeare fans will appreciate Ophelia but so will non-fans. It’s a story of empowerment and […]
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A Bloody Time Capsule
Review ONCE UPON A TIME … IN HOLLYWOOD. It’s been nearly four years since the release of Quentin Tarantino’s last movie The Hateful Eight (2015) and for many of us much of that time has played out like a chainsaw horror show set to a broken calliope loop; sort of like a Tarantino sequence, but charmless […]
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The Pretty Kitty has No Teeth
THE LION KING. By the time the original Lion King (1994) came out and caught fire, I had already started moving out of the animated feature lane (where I had only really spent a brief, though admittedly enjoyable, season). I was of just the right age that Pulp Fiction hit a lot harder that year, […]
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The Filmore to Hunter’s Point
Reviews The Last Black Man in San Francisco. The movie opens on a school-aged African American girl skipping happily down a street next to the bay. Inches away, be-hazmatted workers gingerly remove debris from the area around her feet. The scene is Hunter’s Point, a rarely talked about neighborhood of San Francisco where the U.S. […]
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Vacations from Hell
Reviews SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME. Way back in 2017 (time proves elastic, seems to have no real meaning) I was somewhat taken aback by how much I enjoyed the most recent reboot/re-imagining/recycling of the Peter Parker/Spiderman character in Spiderman: Homecoming. Tom Holland seemed the right fit for the part: lithe, boyish, charming but uncertain of […]
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Yesterday is Sweet and Corny
Reviews YESTERDAY. I wouldn’t call Danny Boyle one of my favorite directors. He can tend toward narrative overreach, treacly sentimentality and visual excess. Still, he’s been showing up and doing the work for oh, 25 years now — at least in the world of features, since he was directing television for a while before the […]
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Good Goth
Reviews LOS ESPOOKYS. Even as blockbuster movies continue spiraling into a pit of staleness — eight of the 10 highest-grossing films last week were remakes or sequels — streaming channels climb on to more creative heights. Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, YouTube, et al., offer such bounty that a person would almost trade the summer […]
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Men Out of Time
Reviews SHAFT. Isaac Hayes’ Theme from Shaft is a certified slapper (that’s what the kids are calling them, right?). Trouble is, so is John Shaft, at least as characterized by Richard Roundtree in the original movie from 1971. (I haven’t explored the quick succession of sequels, TV movies or the kinda-sorta sequel in 2000, starring […]
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All Creatures Great and Small
Reviews THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM. John and Molly Chester give up city jobs and buy a dilapidated farm with the goal of a) keeping a promise to their dog and b) making a farm that’s completely natural — no big corporate agriculture here. Fascinating idea, right? Plus, director John (a veteran TV director before buying […]
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Better than Maybe
Reviews ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE. It can be challenging for me to find an entry point with romantic comedies. Not that I dislike them (though to be honest I would most of the time select something else) but by and large the genre leans on the acceptance of a certain level of earnestness, a borderline […]
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Overachievers Gone Wild
Reviews BOOKSMART. Unless you’re one of those people who has the sun shining on them every day, high school can be tricky to navigate. Whether it’s infuriating or merely tedious, it’s quite a trial at the time. Having a best friend with whom to bond can definitely help someone through the highs and lows. Central […]