No sooner than I had published last week’s whinging lament that certain exciting new releases (Promising Young Woman and News of the World) were only to be seen theatrically, both became available streaming, albeit as Premium Video On-Demand (PVOD) selections — hubris, though mild. Why the studios chose to attempt a box office cash grab […]
The Miniplex
Posted inArts + Scene
Ladies and Gentlemen and Gangsters
The first quarter of almost any normal year yields very little from the movie watching perspective, at least theatrically. The sprint to screen awards contenders in New York and Los Angeles having ended with the ringing in of the new year, the ensuing months become a sort of protracted sloughing-off of the dead weight of […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Good Movies from the Bitter End of 2020
I have no intention to recap, relive or relitigate the year just past. I would not suggest I understand what happened to those of us who, so far, have survived. Further, I think anyone claims to is likely a liar, maybe a bigot and probably has something to do with attempts to overturn elections and […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Amazon Doesn’t Deliver
Although Wonder Woman first appeared in DC comics in 1941, I didn’t discover her until 1975, the same time the Lynda Carter television series came on. After surviving elementary school a foot taller than every other kid and being teased mercilessly, leaving middle school a whopping 5 foot 10 inches (the same height as Carter […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Grudge Boat
LET THEM ALL TALK. It certainly wasn’t the biggest (or worst) news of the year but the recent announcement by Warner Bros. that the studio would be releasing its entire 2021 slate simultaneously in theaters and on the HBOMax streaming platform has produced no small amount of hand-wringing and outcry. Prominent directors — including Christopher […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Straycation
BLACK BEAR. There are a lot of things movies have done with homes out in the country, from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House through Withnail and I, and now with Black Bear. Lawrence Michael Levine’s film made a big splash at Sundance back around the start of this year (which of course now feels […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Hollywood Beginning
HAPPIEST SEASON. Having made no secret of my childlike but abiding love of Christmas movies and despite our conventional notions of time and meaningful dates of demarcation having slipped away in 2020, I feel compelled to watch them. Maybe it’s a passive version of the denial that has led swaths of the populace to wantonly […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Queens of the Season
CHRISTMAS ON THE SQUARE. Dolly Parton is never really out of public consciousness, amazingly maintaining her iconic presence in American culture without scandal, just working away and occasionally voicing her support for LGBTQ folks and Black Lives Matter, and doing weekly bedtime story readings online for children and frazzled adults during the pandemic. She’s having […]
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On Paper
MANGROVE. In yet another telling instance regarding the state of contemporary cinema, one more of its preeminent voices, Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, 2013) has transitioned to the small screen. Collaborating with the BBC and Amazon, he has created a five-part anthology series (really five movies varying in length from 60 to 120 minutes) […]
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Convention and Invention
JINGLE JANGLE: A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY. Somewhere on the deep end of my October horror movie binge, I noticed the nightly episodes of Murder She Wrote I needed to come down from an exorcism or a house full of haunted dolls were no longer available. Instead, with pumpkins still yet to carve, the Hallmark Channel had […]
Posted inArts + Scene
On Paper
WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME. Spoiler: We live in trying times. While hopeful news occasionally filters through the hateful noise of late — feels like a first for this year of less auspicious ones — and while some of it has induced an almost palpable unburdening, a lightening of the the spirit, it also […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Gothic Horror for the Hoi Polloi
I’ve been thinking a lot about Guy Fieri. I recently listened to an interview he did with Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful podcast, in which they boiled the state of the nation down to a “Donkey Sauce/aioli cultural divide.” They’re the same thing, Donkey Sauce and aioli, according to Fieri himself — who also […]