UPDATE: I was mistakenly sent sent a list of screeners that included Skylark and Point Symmetry. Neither film is included in the Joyce Forum. Sorry for any confusion. With the San Diego Jewish Film Festival ...
by Scott MarksThe bad news is that Days is intentionally unsubtitled. The good news is that there’s barely a word spoken by our two leads. Loneliness is their universal language. More bad news: this is the only ...
by Scott MarksSean Penn’s latest arrived at multiplexes armed with an edict from its star/director aimed at the unjabbed among us: unless you’re vaccinated, stay away from Flag Day. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Why should ...
by Scott MarksC.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker) regularly awakened his daughter Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner) to wow the partygoers gathered in the spacious living room below with the young girl’s remarkable vocal reach. These so-called “church parties” were ...
by Scott MarksChaplin's sentimental salute to himself, in the role of an aging vaudevillian still bursting with creativity, charity, sagacity, and dignity. Astoundingly self-glamorizing, voluminously talky, almost totally unhumorous. Its chosen vein is pathos, and it is undoubtedly pathetic in one sense ...
by Duncan ShepherdLast year’s King Arthur movie may have flopped, but director James Wan — whose horror beginnings (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring) show up in ways both annoying (frequent use of explosion-as-jump-scare) and delightful (there’s a reason H.P. Lovecraft’s novel The Dunwich ...
by Matthew LickonaAlbert Brooks's sixth directing effort is his first outright disappointment. It doesn't start out that way. The protagonist -- Brooks himself, of course, this time in the part of a mainstream screenwriter -- is close enough to Brooks in reality, ...
by Duncan ShepherdWhat can be said of an ensemble drama in which Milton Berle gives the best performance? Or a searing indictment of the Oscars that couldn’t have been made without producer Joseph E. Levine first obtaining ...
by Scott MarksMy analysis of The Carpetbaggers was pitched as either a cover story or a column entry to be presented in two parts. Guess who lost the coin toss. Here’s part two. The Carpetbaggers (1964) Somewhere ...
by Scott MarksChicago was one of the last major markets to be wired for cable. (Everybody got their cut!) My first Jerrold Box offered 4 channels, one of which was TBS. Bill Tush hosted a Sunday morning ...
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 MarksUPDATE: I was mistakenly sent sent a list of screeners that included Skylark and Point Symmetry. Neither film is included in the Joyce Forum. Sorry for any confusion. With the San Diego Jewish Film Festival ...
by Scott MarksThe bad news is that Days is intentionally unsubtitled. The good news is that there’s barely a word spoken by our two leads. Loneliness is their universal language. More bad news: this is the only ...
by Scott MarksSean Penn’s latest arrived at multiplexes armed with an edict from its star/director aimed at the unjabbed among us: unless you’re vaccinated, stay away from Flag Day. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Why should ...
by Scott MarksC.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker) regularly awakened his daughter Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner) to wow the partygoers gathered in the spacious living room below with the young girl’s remarkable vocal reach. These so-called “church parties” were ...
by Scott MarksChaplin's sentimental salute to himself, in the role of an aging vaudevillian still bursting with creativity, charity, sagacity, and dignity. Astoundingly self-glamorizing, voluminously talky, almost totally unhumorous. Its chosen vein is pathos, and it is undoubtedly pathetic in one sense ...
by Duncan ShepherdShort for Jigsaw, nickname of a serial killer who "technically" has killed no one, but rather has contrived elaborate traps to compel his victims to do the killing. Cheap, crude, ugly, hokey chiller which you're likely to be sorry you ...
by Duncan ShepherdSomething seems to be missing here, as compared with the earlier Albert Brooks movies, Real Life and Modern Romance. Not laughs, surely; at least not in significant numbers. And the basic idea -- of a young Establishment couple who, with ...
by Duncan ShepherdFor all the kinetic vroom, the imagination is static. 3-D can do little for a story this flat, as the cute Pixar cars get involved in a Grand Prix race and Bond-like thrills. When the animators rely so much on ...
by David ElliottWhat can be said of an ensemble drama in which Milton Berle gives the best performance? Or a searing indictment of the Oscars that couldn’t have been made without producer Joseph E. Levine first obtaining ...
by Scott MarksMy analysis of The Carpetbaggers was pitched as either a cover story or a column entry to be presented in two parts. Guess who lost the coin toss. Here’s part two. The Carpetbaggers (1964) Somewhere ...
by Scott MarksChicago was one of the last major markets to be wired for cable. (Everybody got their cut!) My first Jerrold Box offered 4 channels, one of which was TBS. Bill Tush hosted a Sunday morning ...
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