Now Playing In Your Living Room: “John Lewis: Good Trouble” Is a Fitting Tribute To a True American Hero
JULY 20, 2020 John Lewis, who died on Friday at the age of 80, was a real-life American hero. I don’t use a word like that lightly, but Lewis…
Biography
Now Playing in Your Living Room: Mackie & Jackson Team Up to Bring Life to the Mediocre “The Banker”
APRIL 2, 2020 The real-life drama, “The Banker,” is Apple TV+’s first foray into motion picture production, and like most of the programming I’ve seen so far on the…
Now Playing In Your Living Room: Eddie Murphy Returns and Rules in “Dolemite Is My Name”
DECEMBER 23, 2019 Watching Eddie Murphy’s brilliant hosting job this past weekend on “Saturday Night Live,” I was reminded his great return to movies this fall in the comedy…
Renée Zellweger Shines in an Otherwise Meh “Judy”
SEPTEMBER 27, 2019 Renée Zellweger is an interesting case. The actress, who quickly became an audience favorite after her breakthrough performance in “Jerry Maguire,” grew in stature in the…
“Rocketman” — Now This Is How You Do It
MAY 30, 2019 “Rocketman” is a breath of fresh air in the musical biography genre. But, more importantly, it breathes fresh air in this whole movie year so far.…
“Never Look Away” — A Portrait of the Artist as a (Very Conflicted) Young Man
MARCH 6, 2019 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is an interesting guy. As one of Germany’s leading filmmakers with a highfalutin’ name to boot, you might expect von Donnersmarck to…
Melissa McCarthy is Magnificent in the Slyly Heartbreaking “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
NOVEMBER 26, 2018 “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is one of the funniest films about loneliness that I have seen in…maybe ever. It’s the early 1990s in Manhattan. The…
“Bohemian Rhapsody” Is a Toothless Wonder, a Queen Biography That Only Your Grandmother Could Love
OCTOBER 31, 2018 There was a particularly dopey movie genre that briefly flourished and (thankfully) died in the 1940s and 1950s that told the life stories of famous composers. …
The Exploration of Space in “First Man” Is Instead Much More About the Exploration of Grief
OCTOBER 16, 2018 Spam in a can. That was the famous four-word description of the Mercury astronauts by legendary pilot Chuck Yeager, and you can definitely feel the truth…
Though Disturbing at Times, “I, Tonya” is Usually an Absolute Hoot
JANUARY 11, 2018 Seriously, was anyone really crying out for a film biography of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding? Well, apparently screenwriter Steven Rogers (“Stepmom”) thought so and enlisted…
