VERONICA MARS:  Watch It At Home – Still a TV Show, For Better and Worse It was probably impossible for the movie of VERONICA MARS to live up to the story of how it came to be made.  That’s an epic, decade-long saga, which began when the TV series, critically praised but never a […]

  THE BUTLER:  Worth A Ticket – Superb Acting Elevates A History Lesson THE BUTLER, in its form and earnestness, recalls the days of prestige TV movies and miniseries that used to be associated with the Hallmark Hall of Fame and network sweeps periods (and which now exist only as a vestige on pay-cable, mostly […]

  DJANGO UNCHAINED – Worth A Ticket – Pre-Civil War American History 101 With Professor Tarantino Quentin Tarantino is, when you think about it, the most successful avant-garde filmmaker in Hollywood.  His triumph is that although his films are as idiosyncratic and unique as, say, those of the Andersons Wes and Paul Thomas or of […]

TO ROME WITH LOVE:  Worth A Ticket – Woody Allen Takes A Roman Holiday   At the age of 76, with 44 films and a moving van’s worth of awards to his credit, Woody Allen doesn’t worry too much about topping himself.  His assembly line readies next year’s movie for production before the current year’s […]

  PEOPLE LIKE US:  Watch It At Home – Not The First Movie Like This   Sam Harper (Chris Pine) is a guy we’ve met before.  He’s the fast-talking, self-absorbed hustler who gets along in life by sheer nerve, and doesn’t really care about anyone else.  He needs to open himself up to the problems […]

  Virtually every screening at Sundance is followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker, and while these sessions can be informative and charming (although 3 questions that need never be asked again are How long did you shoot?  What was the budget? and How much was improvised?), they can also be quite sad.  Watching them, […]

  THE MASTER:  Worth A Ticket – The Title Describes the Filmmaker Our shorthand for describing movie directors, even great ones, is to compare them to other filmmakers.  So Quentin Tarantino is Sergio Leone plus half a dozen (at least) obscure exploitation and art-house directors, Soderbergh is Godardian, Scorsese recreates the aesthetic of Michael Powell, […]

  THIS IS THE END:  Worth A Ticket – Apocalypse Right Now Imagine an dystopian mumblecore extravaganza populated mostly by the Judd Apatow stock company, and you’ll have an idea of what to expect from THIS IS THE END.  Almost inevitably self-indulgent and uneven, the directing debut of Seth Rogen and his writing partner/BFF Evan […]