Former film professor Rifkin does his best work on his back sound asleep, dreaming in black-and-white
Wallace Shawn’s first Woody Allen film was also his first screen appearance. His cameo in Manhattan amounted to little more than a brilliant punchline. One doesn’t easily associate the terms “oversexed” and “brilliant kind of ...
by Scott MarksThe definition of insanity is watching another sequel with “Kong” and/or “Godzilla” in its title and expecting different results. Godzilla vs. Kong is a risk-free retread of Jurassic proportions. Kong still calls Skull Island his ...
by Scott MarksConfession is good for the soul: campy sci-fi has never been my bag, particularly when it comes bearing the stamp of network TV. Having never made it all the way through an episode of Star ...
by Scott MarksWith Yes Day, the team that brought you Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day once again proves that when it comes to entertaining families (and single guys in their sixties), director ...
by Scott MarksLazily plotted paranoid thriller. The main instrument of paranoia is a crowd-control combat helicopter that can see and hear through solid walls. But the technology-crazy moviemakers can't hide their ambivalence about this. They seem to feel that such a Big ...
by Duncan ShepherdWhen it comes to creating character, Melissa McCarthy must have been absent from Animal House the day Dean Wormer advised students that, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” For her latest exercise in vacuity, McCarthy ...
by Scott MarksGrind-it-out road comedy about a slightly uptight hunk (Ben Affleck, as loose-limbed as usual) who sows his first and last wild oats between New York City and Savannah, under the guidance of a free-spirited cutenik (Sandra Bullock, the Kerouac of ...
by Duncan ShepherdThis week brings a pair of first rate action thrillers from the mind of Luc Besson, a creative force in French cinema who makes a much better writer-producer than he does a director. District b13 ...
by Scott MarksGeorge Segal, a major luminary in my cinematic firmament, died last week, and with him went a galaxy of outstanding performances. Peter Gusenberg in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was to be my launching point, ...
byAlmost 60 years after my babysitter let me stay up to watch it, I finally paid a return visit to the seedy underbelly of life on Chicago’s skid row, Let No Man Write My Epitaph. ...
by Scott MarksThe Hemlock Society's monthly “Right to Die Film Series'' isn't going to let a pandemic keep it down. The group’s next meeting will be held virtually on December 20 with SOD (Suicide on Demand) as ...
by Scott MarksFormer film professor Rifkin does his best work on his back sound asleep, dreaming in black-and-white
Wallace Shawn’s first Woody Allen film was also his first screen appearance. His cameo in Manhattan amounted to little more than a brilliant punchline. One doesn’t easily associate the terms “oversexed” and “brilliant kind of ...
by Scott MarksThe definition of insanity is watching another sequel with “Kong” and/or “Godzilla” in its title and expecting different results. Godzilla vs. Kong is a risk-free retread of Jurassic proportions. Kong still calls Skull Island his ...
by Scott MarksConfession is good for the soul: campy sci-fi has never been my bag, particularly when it comes bearing the stamp of network TV. Having never made it all the way through an episode of Star ...
by Scott MarksWith Yes Day, the team that brought you Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day once again proves that when it comes to entertaining families (and single guys in their sixties), director ...
by Scott MarksSean Connery's James Bond act at its most blasé. In the fourth installment of the series, there's an almost complete surrender to gadgetry, as 007 flies like Mighty Mouse through sky and sea, en route to thwarting a plot involving ...
by Duncan ShepherdWhen it comes to creating character, Melissa McCarthy must have been absent from Animal House the day Dean Wormer advised students that, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” For her latest exercise in vacuity, McCarthy ...
by Scott MarksCurrent events copied and rewritten (and painstakingly explained for those not in the know: "Israel is America's best friend in the Middle East," the command post informs its field officer. "And it's only twenty minutes from Beirut."). There is even ...
by Duncan ShepherdSo far, Michael Haneke has specialized in focusing his clinician’s eye on tests of morality that arise during life’s deeply unsettling transgressive moments. A film about losing one’s spouse to Alzheimer's seemed to be a logical progression. Selecting French acting ...
by Scott MarksThis week brings a pair of first rate action thrillers from the mind of Luc Besson, a creative force in French cinema who makes a much better writer-producer than he does a director. District b13 ...
by Scott MarksGeorge Segal, a major luminary in my cinematic firmament, died last week, and with him went a galaxy of outstanding performances. Peter Gusenberg in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was to be my launching point, ...
byAlmost 60 years after my babysitter let me stay up to watch it, I finally paid a return visit to the seedy underbelly of life on Chicago’s skid row, Let No Man Write My Epitaph. ...
by Scott MarksThe Hemlock Society's monthly “Right to Die Film Series'' isn't going to let a pandemic keep it down. The group’s next meeting will be held virtually on December 20 with SOD (Suicide on Demand) as ...
by Scott Marks