As a “Star Trek” fan, it’s hard not to feel the bittersweet sting of another set of Wilderness Years coming. With Paramount feeling the sweet sting of budget cuts and an impending merger with Warner Bros., it feels like the higher-ups at the Big Blue Mountain are closing up shop on the Final Frontier. Its

When Michael Mann‘s “Manhunter,” an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon, was released in August 1986, it was not a success by any means—it received largely mediocre reviews that dismissed it as a case of style over substance and those reviews, combined with a title that meant little to potential viewers, a cast of largely

There I was in the spotlight, alongside my daughter, Sonia, playing Blues harmonicas onstage in front of a lively crowd. Was this some sort of a surreal dream? It certainly felt like one in the moment. But this was, in fact, an actual event that occurred on a Friday morning earlier this month.  It all

“Ride or Die” arrives on Prime Video this week, and its title is accurate in multiple ways. Calling someone your “ride or die” means they’ve got your back no matter what: you need to bury a body, they’ve got the shovel; you need a getaway driver, they’ve already filled up the gas tank. Adding another

My final dispatch of KVIFF features some heavy hitters. There’s the Crystal Globe winner, the festival’s top prize. There are also two coming-of-age stories about how kind the world can be and how unflinchingly harsh it actually is. Each work is led by a lonely, misunderstood protagonist whose mental health is at stake. They’re all

The 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is upon us, perhaps the largest genre film festival in the world (and, for my money, my favorite), setting nearly three weeks aside at the tail end of July to descend upon Montreal with over 125 buzzy, strange, experimental, and just plain weird features (and more

There have already been so many books written about the work of David Lynch, and it seems like an industry that will only explode in the coming years now that his filmography is tragically complete. Now that writers can see the full breadth of Lynch’s output from the early short films through “Blue Velvet,” “Twin

I should have written about “Bob’s Funeral” last month for Father’s Day, since it is about fatherhood and how some get it right and some get it wrong. It’s a documentary told from a son’s point of view, someone trying to get answers about his family’s past and why his grandfather’s funeral was so somber

In Czech director Jana Hojdová’s raw, brazenly honest documentary, “Robert Richardson: The White Devil,” the legendary director of photography finds himself in a curious position. After decades capturing a plethora of towering films: “Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “A Few Good Men,” “Casino,” “Kill Bill: Volume I & II,” “Shutter Island,” “Once Upon

July 4th marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. Speaking as someone old enough to have personally experienced the 200th anniversary way back in 1976—talking to my children about history, I used to add “When cave-kids rode dinosaurs to school”—I’m bummed out that it’s not a bigger deal. But