Review: Spenser Confidential (Netflix)
This Netflix title caught my eye because I was a fan of the TV series “Spenser for Hire” (starring the late Robert Urich) in the mid-1980s and was curious how…
Review: Birds of Prey
There wasn’t much to like about Suicide Squad back in 2016, other than Margot Robbie’s scene-stealing performance as Joker’s crazy cartoonish girlfriend Harley Quinn. Three and a half years later,…
Review: The Rhythm Section
Think of your heart as the drums, your breathing as the bass. That’s pretty much my only takeaway of note from The Rhythm Section and I’m still not sure how…
Review: The Gentlemen
The Gentlemen is a stylish crime caper with writer/director Guy Ritchie’s fingerprints all over it. It's very much a "Guy" movie - and a "guy movie", with a splash of…
Review: Bad Boys For Life
“Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do...?” Gonna make a movie and a sequel or two. It all began in 1995, with Bad Boys, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence…
Reflections, Ruminations and Review: Richard Jewell
This movie hits close to home on so many levels. I was living in Atlanta in 1996, freelancing in news, and was even supposed to be volunteering as a pseudo…
Review: Knives Out
I caught this one at Middleburg, and sadly it was my biggest disappointment of the festival. As whodunits go, the jig is up pretty early on. But it has so…
Review: Charlie’s Angels
The new Charlie’s Angels movie is not quite a reboot. Or a sequel. Or even a reimagining of the classic franchise. It’s more of a continuation, expansion and rebranding of…
Quickie Review: Motherless Brooklyn
Motherless Brooklyn is the type of film that evokes a general sense of post-viewing contentment, and a lingering feeling that it could have been more. Perhaps with a bit more…
Review: Joker
Disturbing. That’s really the only word that comes to mind when attempting to process my thoughts on Joker. Did I like it? I don’t know. Not really. Did I not…
Review: Hustlers
Can/will Hustlers appeal to both men and women? I’m not sure. It’s a film about friendship and sisterhood, payback and… pole dancing. A stimulating crime drama served up with a…
Review: Cold Case Hammarskjold
In this thoroughly odd documentary, Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger heads to Zambia after hearing conspiracy theories and tall tales about how UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was murdered in 1961. In…
Review: Piranhas
In this adaptation of Roberto Saviano's (Gomorrah) coming of age novel a group of fifteen-year-old boys in Naples transform themselves from one of the city's many adolescent street gangs into…
Quickie Review: The Kitchen
The Kitchen. Just stay out of it. As much as I’d like to support a film helmed by a woman (Andrea Berloff in her directorial debut) and led by a…
Quickie Review: Stuber
Stuber’s problems start at the beginning - with its title. You ‘get’ the reference easy enough and early enough once the story begins to unfold (Stu + Uber = Stuber).…