Previews FIRST MAN. “Hey Girl” memes and references to The Notebook (2004) aside, Ryan Gosling has become one of the most versatile, self-challenging leading men in Hollywood, with a constantly growing filmography to reflect it. Now he works almost exclusively on major releases for prestige directors but he brings intense focus and emotional depth to […]
The Miniplex
Posted inArts + Scene
Venom Has Teeth
Reviews VENOM. As much as I am loath to describe and discuss yet another Marvel movie (where are the emojis on this thing?), I admit a sense of morbid curiosity with this one. I’m prone to root for the underdog and, even when that dog isn’t exactly under anything (see Deadpool 2), a lower profile […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Long Nights
Reviews NIGHT SCHOOL. Kevin Hart, like his frequent costar Dwayne Johnson, lives by hustle. One of the biggest stand-up comics in the world, he came by it honestly, after decades working his way through thankless club dates and TV development deals that went nowhere, until he became the sort of entertainer who holds arenas in […]
Posted inArts + Scene
No Filter
ASSASSINATION NATION. This far into our waking national nightmare, when hours seem like days and each sunrise reveals more desperate attempts to hamper or undo the personal, social and legal freedoms we’d have define us, it can be difficult to identify new developments to be thankful for. There is hope at the national level, I […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Stylish Monsters
Reviews A SIMPLE FAVOR. The thing here is style: a modern noir about a missing person, a psycho-sexual thriller soaked in gin and dressed in devastating clothes, played out in a gorgeous, antiseptic ultra-modern house. That’s only a little less than half of it though, the veneer of the part of the story dominated by […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Peppermint’s Not So Fresh
PEPPERMINT. Due to the recent and ongoing action movie renaissance, there is in every new shoot ’em up the hopeful possibility of transcendence, or at least a couple of entertaining hours. But for every Atomic Blonde (2017) there must of course be a Peppermint and the pattern of hope despoiled continues. I cite Atomic Blonde […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Flesh and Fury
A PRAYER BEFORE DAWN. I left A Prayer Before Dawn feeling like I’d been beaten to a pulp in a Thai prison, but I mean that as a compliment. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s 2017 drama, written by Jonathan Hirschbein and Nick Saltrese, and starring Joe Cole, is based on a memoir by Billy Moore, a Liverpudlian boxer […]
Posted inMusic
Road Warrior
I am posting this edition of the Setlist from the road, having joined up with the herds of holiday travelers to celebrate the end of summer by driving for a ghastly amount of time to a faraway place. And while I am not towing a boat or driving an absurdly sized RV, I am nonetheless […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Puppets in L.A.
THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS. So they’ve got this this LA detective noir filled with violence and drugs and sex, enacted by puppets — Henson puppets, no less! — and Melissa McCarthy? That’s gold, by my lights. Or at least it should be; it’s just that somebody has to do the hard work to take a fun, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Crazy Good
CRAZY RICH ASIANS. Director Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s bestseller is already a big deal in that it’s the first all-Asian cast from a major Hollywood studio since The Joy Luck Club 25 years ago. That it’s also raking in cash with a $34 million five-day opening — serious numbers for a rom-com […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Monsters Back from the Past
Reviews BLACKKKLANSMAN. I’ve never subscribed to the notion that hatred is borne of fear. There’s truth to it, I suppose, but it has always seemed to me an attempted defense of something indefensible. Fear is natural and necessary, hatred is useful only in fomenting hatred. To offer fear as the source of hatred seems to […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Long Lost
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS. There are stories, obscured by the complacency and subterfuge of modern life, that retain the power to surprise and amaze. Some, through exploration, become chilling reminders of what we do not and cannot know about the world and, more importantly, the people around us. Three Identical Strangers has become one of the […]