(***1/2) “I’ve heard it said. That people come into our lives for a reason…” That poet lyric is from the song “For Good,” arguably the second most famous tune from the Broadway musical Wicked. The words hint at the theme of this final half of the Wicked duology, which has been magically created by screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana […]
The Running Man
(**) He’s running as fast as he can—in a film that’s going nowhere. There isn’t one “wow” moment in this entire remake of the tepid 1987 movie of the same name, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Blame the writing, direction and production elements for the inability to make any of this footage truly exciting or visually […]
Sentimental Value — 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
(****) An American movie star asks, “Why didn’t you want to do the role?” The daughter of the director, an actress, responds, “I can’t work with him. My father is a very difficult person.” And so, it goes. A daddy/daughter relationship fraught with bad feelings and lots of history churns and churns. Absentee dads, and […]
Nuremberg — 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
(***) “The world needs to know what these men did.” That’s the thesis that drives The Allies who’d beaten Germany. The reason they form an International Military Tribunal and create the world’s first global trial, a reckoning that sought to hold the highest officers in the Nazi regime accountable for their atrocities. In mid 1945, […]
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere — 2025 New YorkFilm Festival
(***) “I don’t want to have to explain it.” That’s a demand many artists can understand. Not having to elaborate on their creativity, just expressing it is the quest. That’s also the central issue in this quiet chapter of Bruce Springsteen’s life. An epoch that trapped him in the worst of times emotionally, but not […]
Frankenstein — 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
(**) In the end, why is such an overwhelming production an underwhelming experience? The legend of Frankenstein dates back to the 1818 book by Mary Shelley. A novel that told the story of a mad scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who built a creature from reanimated body parts. An act that forced the book’s readers to consider […]
Wasteman — 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
(***1/2) Damn. He’s near parole then fate gives him a new thug roommate. What could go wrong? Prison movies come and go. Few are as well written and intriguing as this ode to those incarcerated and hoping for freedom. In a striking feature film debut, British director Cal McMau doesn’t bring much new to the […]
A House of Dynamite Premieres at the 2025 New YorkFilm Festival
(****) “Object remains inbound!” Those aren’t the words you want to hear when a nuclear missile is headed your way. Yet that’s the ominous news that bombards government officials in this very imaginative, pulse-quickening thriller. News that brings astonishment, audacity, mystery, dread and a disarray that’s alarming. In the hands of some directors, the bomb’s […]
The Secret Agent — 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
(****) “I am under a death threat… it’s a dangerous situation.” Marcelo (Wagner Moura, Narcos), a tec research scientist at a university, and all the people he loves, could lose their lives. During Brazil’s infamous military dictatorship in 1977, he and throngs of others are on the run. Fleeing from those who’d kill them to silence […]
The Choral — 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
(***1/2) When they sang in harmony they thought it would be forever. World War I thought otherwise. Audiences who love music, have been in a choir or want to know what it’s like to be left behind when war rages will have a special affinity for this period drama. Others too, as they get to […]
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