The Business of Film and Entertainment
Written by: Victoria Alexander
I do not believe the public will ever know what the reason was behind the Tate-La Bianca murders committed by Tex Watson, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins and ordered by Charles Manson. From all I have read … Continue reading
Written by: Victoria Alexander
Chris Hemsworth walks off with the 3-hour extravaganza. The talking rodent comes in second. Remember early Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.)? As played by Downey, Tony was bitchy, filled with bravado, egotistical and pranced around showing off his toys and … Continue reading
Written by: Victoria Alexander
Jordan Peele does the miraculous: his follow up to GET OUT does not cheat his fans. And if you can dope out the twist, it’s terrific. The two people I saw US with couldn’t understand the twisty ending. I tried … Continue reading
Written by: Christopher Llewellyn Reed
Trial by Fire (Edward Zwick, 2018) 2½ out of 4 stars. Trial by Fire, from director Edward Zwick (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) is the kind of film that trolls for your sympathy through rich veins of sentiment that mask … Continue reading
Written by: Christopher Llewellyn Reed
Fast Color (Julia Hart, 2019) 3 out of 4 stars. Though it suffers from some confused world-building, Julia Hart’s Fast Color remains, throughout, an engaging meditation on identity and empowerment. The film follows a trio of women – three generations of a single … Continue reading
Written by: Christopher Llewellyn Reed
Teen Spirit (Max Minghella, 2018) 2 out of 4 stars. Actor Max Minghella’s directorial debut, Teen Spirit, deserves high marks for style, with its vibrant visuals and evocative editing. Unfortunately, the story the film tells is not up to the … Continue reading
Written by: Rob Goald, Senior Editor
The Cheerful Subversive’s Guide to INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING By Dan Mirvish Routledge/Taylor & Francis A Focal Press Book New York 2017 Learning how to produce ultra-low-budget feature films is a demanding and complicated task. Even earning a bachelor’s degree in Film, … Continue reading
Written by: Christopher Llewellyn Reed
In Lower Manhattan, bordered on the west by the Hudson River, the east by Broadway, the north by Canal Street, and on the south by the World Trade Center site, lies the neighborhood known as Tribeca (formerly spelled “TriBeCa,” each … Continue reading
Written by: Stan Popovich
Many celebrities deal with the pressures of Hollywood on a regular basis. Here are some suggestions on how to manage the stresses and anxieties of dealing with peer pressure when working in Hollywood. 1. Know Where You Stand. Ask yourself … Continue reading
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman, 2019) 3 out of 4 stars. I know next to nothing about the world of Pokémon, nor did I do much research before watching Pokémon Detective Pikachu. I vaguely remember, in 2016, the Pokémon GO … Continue reading
Long Shot (Jonathan Levine, 2019) 3 out of 4 stars. A charming, if overlong, romantic comedy about love, sex and politics, director Jonathan Levine’s Long Shot gives us the unlikely pairing (and coupling) of stars Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen and, … Continue reading
Avengers: Endgame (Joe & Anthony Russo, 2019) 3½ out of 4 stars. Eleven years ago, I never thought the superhero genre would have reached the level of accomplishment of a 21-film saga. Before the first Iron Man released into theaters in … Continue reading
Penguins (Alastair Fothergill/Jeff Wilson, 2019) 1½ out of 4 stars. Who doesn’t love penguins? It’s a question I had on my mind as I watched Disneynature’s latest venture into the animal kingdom that I could guess film distributors had asked … Continue reading
Little (Tina Gordon Chism, 2019) 2 out of 4 stars. Would that Little made a bigger splash. Instead, it sets its sights so low that when the comedy succeeds, it is almost in spite of the premise, rather than because of … Continue reading
Walking on Water (Andrey Paounov, 2018) 3½ out of 4 stars. For over 50 years, romantic and artistic partners Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat, he Bulgarian, she French – known collectively as Christo and Jeanne-Claude – wowed the … Continue reading
Dogman (Matteo Garrone, 2018) 2½ out of 4 stars. The best part of Matteo Garrone’s Dogman are the moments of pure behavioral acting, especially in the scenes between actor Marcello Fonte (L’intrusa) and his canine charges. Fonte plays the eponymous Marcello, … Continue reading
Ask Dr. Ruth (Ryan White, 2019) 3½ out of 4 stars. I remember well the first moment I heard Dr. Ruth Westheimer on the radio, her thick German accent wrapping itself deliciously around syllables theretofore unspoken on the airwaves. Though … Continue reading
Stockholm (Robert Budreau, 2018) 2½ out of 4 stars. Based on the failed real-life 1973 bank robbery that led to the coining of the term “stockholm syndrome,” writer/director Robert Budreau’s Stockholm explores the strange psychological phenomenon of captives bonding with their captors. … Continue reading
