PROMETHEUS:  Worth A Ticket – For the Visual Splendor, Not the Plot   Expectations were undoubtedly too high for PROMETHEUS.  The Alien franchise (and notwithstanding Ridley Scott and co-writer Damon Lindelof’s hemming and hawing on the subject, it’s utterly clear that Prometheus is nothing but a prequel entry in the franchise) has never been […]

  It’s an unfortunate irony that TRUMBO, the story of one of Hollywood’s great blacklisted screenwriters, is undermined by an inadequate script.  It’s written by John McNamara, also the man behind NBC’s low-rated Aquarius, and viewers may find it difficult to figure out just what he and director Jay Roach had in mind, as they […]

  If THE DARK KNIGHT had no superhero or comic book trappings–if The Joker were scarred but not hideously made up, and Batman were a bit lower-tech and merely disguised rather than wearing a cowl and cape–Christopher Nolan’s film would still be one of the best action-adventure crime movies of the past 20 years.  Within […]

> On Homevideo:  See It On Any Screen One of the great things about growing up in New York during the 1970s was experiencing the films of Sidney Lumet, who died today at the age of 86.  Lumet had been making great pictures since the 1950s; his first film–his first film–was 12 Angry Men, and […]

  OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN:  Watch It At Home – Better Luck in June In Hollywood’s grand tradition of 2 movies about volcanoes, 2 about Snow White, 2 about Christopher Columbus and 2 about Truman Capote, this year we’re getting a pair of terrorist attacks on the White House, each foiled by a heroic Secret Service […]

  THE LIFE OF CHUCK (no distrib):  Although Mike Flanagan first gained attention as a director of low-budget feature films, he may be the first horror filmmaker to become an acknowledged master of the genre largely through episodic television, notably The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and The Fall Of the House […]

  BABYGIRL (A24 – Dec. 25):  We’ve reached the point where Nicole Kidman’s work ethic has become something of a running gag.  In the past 5 years alone, she’s appeared in an incredible eight feature films and seven TV series, with three more series on tap for 2025 (so far).  Truth be told, it can feel […]

> MIRROR MIRROR:  Not Even For Free – 7 Years Bad Luck When it was announced that 2012 would bring two big-budget movie versions of the Snow White story, not to mention TV’s Once Upon A Time, in which Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a central character (and that’s not counting Grimm, another fairy tale series […]