The British period drama is one that comes with a built-in formula: find a novel to adapt, emphasize the beautiful clothes and landscapes, air towards the prim and proper, rinse and repeat. When done right you have the makings of…
Movie Review: The Beguiled
When Clint Eastwood starred in the 1971 Don Siegel drama The Beguiled it was a means of changing up his persona, showing that the action hero could play a leading man who literally drives women to madness. The film is…
Movie Review: Get Me Roger Stone
Early in Dylan Bank, Morgan Pehme, Morgan Pehme and Daniel DiMauro’s documentary Get Me Roger Stone their title character lists the four facets of celebrity: “Who is Roger Stone?” “Get me Roger Stone?” “Find me a Roger Stone-type” and “Who…
Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Three years ago Marvel and Disney took a risk on their most ambitious comic book adaptation. Who would have thunk that audiences would embrace a movie whose protagonists contain a talking raccoon and a sentient tree? In the time since…
Movie Review: Casting JonBenet
The death of six-year-old Denver beauty queen JonBenet Ramsay is one of the greatest unsolved crimes. Some people consider the O.J. Simpson trial “their” crime story, but JonBenet Ramsay is mine. Only two years older than Ramsay and yet at…
Movie Review: Chasing Trane – The John Coltrane Documentary
In the wake of La La Land it’s near impossible to watch anything about jazz and not think of Ryan Gosling and his attempts to “save” the dwindling auditory medium. John Scheinfeld’s documentary Chasing Trane is essential viewing, whether you…
Movie Review: A Quiet Passion
In the pantheon of movies about women writers the path veers towards the British: Austen, Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Director Terence Davies gives audiences a new vision of the female writer, both in geography and personality with his Emily Dickinson…
