Movie junkies, rejoice. Director Peter Medak has made an instructive and nightmarishly funny documentary about how actor Peter Sellers drove him crazy and nearly trashed his career. The Ghost of Peter Sellers (now available on demand) recounts the filming of Ghost in the Noonday Sun, a 1973 pirate-epic folly so …
Read More »'Bacurau' Review: An Exploitation-Movie Gem, Made for the Politically Exploited
“If You Go, Go in Peace.” This is the town motto of Bacurau, a small hamlet in central Brazil that’s home to a modest population of rural residents. It’s a small place, but it’s got a lot. There’s the museum, a tourist attraction (sort of) which sheds light on the …
Read More »'Better Things' Season Four Review: Delighting in the Kindness of Strangers
In the fifth episode of the new season of FX‘s wonderful Better Things, three generations of the Fox family — mom Sam (creator-star Pamela Adlon), grandmother Phil (Celia Imrie), and daughter Frankie (Hannah Alligood) — are enjoying a late-night snack and talking about which part of the family Sam inherited …
Read More »'Hunters' Review: Nazi Revenge Fantasy Goes Big on Grindhouse Style
In the second episode of Amazon’s pulpy new drama Hunters, a team of anti-Nazi vigilantes, led by concentration camp survivor Meyer Hoffman (Al Pacino), confronts a former concentration camp commander who now lives a posh life in late-Seventies America. Hoffman’s group surrounds the Nazi and reads testimonials of the many …
Read More »'The Lodge' Review: Fairy-Tale Horror Film Quickly Falls Apart
Atmosphere, creepy and unnerving, is the main star of The Lodge, a fits-and-starts horrorshow from Veronika Franz and her nephew Severin Fiala, the Austrian duo who made a skin-crawling debut in 2014 with Goodnight Mommy. Now they’re up to their old tricks, this time in English, with parenthood and its …
Read More »'21 Bridges' Review: Chadwick Boseman Gets Betrayed By His Own Cop Thriller
This streets-of-New-York cop drama — shot in Philly, which should tell you something is off — has all the ingredients: adrenalized action, gritty atmosphere and a ready-to-rock cast, led by the Black Panther himself, Chadwick Boseman. How do you screw that up? The prosecution offers as Exhibit A. The skilled …
Read More »'The Crown' Season Three Review: Getting Older Is a Royal Pain
When an iconic British character is played by a new actor, the easiest way to deal with the transition can be to acknowledge it head-on. On Her Majesty’s Secret, the first James Bond film made without Sean Connery, opens with newbie George Lazenby getting ditched by the beautiful woman whose …
Read More »'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' Review: Macabre 101 for Kids
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” a wise woman once said. And sometimes, we tell others stories to scare the living shit out of them. Like that one about the kid who keeps beating on a scarecrow in a cornfield — until one night, the scarecrow decides to …
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