Movie Reviews
Movie Reviews

Showtime’s Surreal Comedy Series Dreaming Whilst Black is Hilarious and Authentic | TV/Streaming

The series begins with Kwabena (Salmon)—referred to as Kwabs—an aspiring filmmaker of Jamaican descent dreaming about being a prestigious filmmaker on a set, making the magic happen. But alas, he’s working a dead-end job in recruitment with a predominantly white staff who abuses the ‘micro’ in micro-aggression. After a one-two punch of a run-in with

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Movie Reviews

My Animal movie review & film summary (2023)

Heather and Jonny’s creators sometimes inadvertently bury their characters’ feelings in features-obscuring silhouettes and by-the-numbers teen and family drama. That lack of variation isn’t surprising, though, since most of the adult characters are defined by their provincial hangups, while most adolescent protagonists follow their gut. Meanwhile, the inescapable snow, the dead woods, and the constricting

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Movie Reviews

Perpetrator movie review & film summary (2023)

Written and directed by Jennifer Reeder (“Knives and Skin”), “Perpetrator” juggles a lot of ideas, grotesque imagery, and side stories—some of which come together and complement one another, while some clash and distract from the other plot points. It’s a strange lumbering beast of a script, and while never boring, it never moves smoothly. The

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Movie Reviews

His Presence Looms Large: Lisa Cortés on Little Richard: I Am Everything | Interviews

And you needed access to the cover versions of Richard’s hits by artists like Elvis and Pat Boone. You needed to show the blandness of Pat Boone’s cover of “Tutti Frutti” next to the power of the original.  [laughs] As hard as he tries to swing it, I think he’s still waiting for the spirit

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Movie Reviews

Slotherhouse movie review & film summary (2023)

As the title suggests, “Slotherhouse” is about a sloth that terrorizes a sorority. The fake house is cleverly called Sigma Lambda Theta, which essentially spells … sloth. And the sloth is basically a slow-moving but surprisingly resourceful version of Chucky. Why is there a sloth at the sorority house, you may be wondering? Well, college

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Movie Reviews

Andrew Ridgeley on the New Netflix Doc Wham! | Interviews

Whether you were dancing in the ‘80s, or dancing now, it would be hard to find a more infectious track than “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,” one of the biggest hits by the short-lived English ’80s pop band Wham! While the band’s legacy was eclipsed by the mesmerizing rise of its lead singer and songwriter

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Movie Reviews

Golda movie review & film summary (2023)

But underneath the bushy eyebrows, wiry wig, and thick ankles, who was she? Aside from the obvious ache she experiences when she learns of mounting Israeli casualties, how did she feel about this conflict? Working from a script by Nicholas Martin, Nattiv depicts this fraught period through a series of dry, repetitive strategy meetings between

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Movie Reviews

The Hill movie review & film summary (2023)

Directed by Jeff Celentano from a script by the late Scott Marshall Smith (“Men of Honor”) and Angelo Pizzo (who wrote the classics “Rudy” and “Hoosiers“), “The Hill” retells the true story of Fort Worth, Texas native Rickey Marshall. Like Pizzo’s signature screenplays, this tale is in the spirit of the original “Rocky,” where the hero’s achievements are far more modest

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Movie Reviews

Carpet Cowboys movie review & film summary (2023)

MacKenzie and Collier set the scene with evocative imagery of the complex machinery that makes these carpets, weaving thousands of threads into the banal tapestries we traipse upon every day. “It is the canvas on which all the other art rests,” says Lew Migliore, one of the many colorful figures whose livelihood is found in

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Movie Reviews

Triage Is a Huge Part of Filmmaking: Laura Moss on Birth/Rebirth | Interviews

Still, “birth/rebirth” is in no way an adaptation of the novel. I haven’t seen a faithful adaptation of the novel yet. With a male doctor, the horror of creation is about abandoning your creation. To me, it’s funny that when women do it, they have to raise it together. [laughs] They don’t get to abandon

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