Is ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’ too gay for America?
Jim Carrey gives the best performance of his career in “I Love You Phillip Morris” but the fact-based movie about an extraordinarily clever gay grifter took almost a year to find a distributor in this...
View ArticleRent it now: the underrated horror film ‘1408’
“Insidious” opened today to mixed reviews, with some fans comparing it to “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” in terms of it being a low-tech horror picture with sleeper potential. It’s...
View ArticleWhat’s a good film actress to do in the age of ‘Transformers’?
The other night I watched the 1966 comedy-drama “Morgan!” (below) starring Vanessa Redgrave and David Warner and was inspired by my enjoyment of that oldie to pull out a copy of another Redgrave film...
View ArticleSmash’: watching whole TV seasons in one fell swoop
The availability of complete seasons of TV series for DVD and download marathon viewings has made it almost impossible for me to watch a show on a week-by-week basis. I can’t stand the suspense of...
View Article‘The Eye Has to Travel’: somewhere Diana Vreeland is smiling
The new documentary, “The Eye Has to Travel,” takes us into the world of the great fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who started life as an ugly duckling (dismissed by her mother in favor of her pretty...
View ArticleRent it now: Woody Allen’s underrated ‘Manhattan Murder Mystery’
Woody Allen has made so many movies over the past five decades that some of them don’t receive as much attention as they deserve. Everyone knows about the masterpieces — “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,”...
View ArticleIn praise of Stephen Frears (&‘Philomena’)
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is in the middle of a long tribute to the veteran Hollywood director George Cukor who worked steadily from the 1930s through the 1980s — racking up many classics —...
View Article‘Animal Kingdom’ vs. ‘Ozark’
The ‘anti-hero’ has been central to many of the biggest hits on cable and streaming services since the launch of “The Sopranos” on HBO in 1999. Many of the key hits during the subsequent two decades...
View Article‘Animal Kingdom’: season two with extras
The DVD might be going the way of the VHS tape – a number of my friends no longer own a player — but the format still offers pleasures that can’t be found on streaming service versions of movies and TV...
View Article‘Scandal’: another reason to stay home
It’s hard to justify venturing out to your local multiplex to see the ‘Purge’ prequel or the latest Dwayne Johnson epic when you can watch something as good as “A Very English Scandal” at home. The...
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