There isn’t much dispute about which showbiz bigwig inspired the largely unseen and unheard boss that hangs like a black cloud over writer-director Kitty Green’s The Assistant. It’s a credit to Green’s film that spotting the parallels to salacious, anger-inducing … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2020 — Number Nine
Mabel’s Strange Predicament (Mabel Normand, 1914). In the third film of his career, Charles Chaplin tried on a new costume. Mabel’s Strange Predicament is the first appearance of Chaplin in his famed guise as the Tramp, and it’s almost jarring … Continue reading Then Playing — Mabel’s Strange Predicament; Wanda; The Professional
Birds Of Prey’s costumes changed the game for female superheroes by Caroline Siede Although I remain devoted to the Academy Awards as an important and reasonably effective — if hardly infallible — measure of what should be added to the ongoing … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’s Wardrobe
Spike Lee had a template to work from when he agreed to direct a film version of David Byrne’s Broadway sensation, American Utopia. Even if there’s arguably too much theatrical staging to the more recent work to call a screen … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2020 — Number Ten
As I type this, it’s been over a year since I set foot in a movie theater. That’s a strange, discombobulating fact for me to set straight in my noggin. Although I’ve hardly kept up the pace of my college … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2020 — An Introduction
When journalist Jessica Bruder toiled away on her book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, I doubt a big-screen adaptation felt like a probably outcome. Bruder’s reportage was on a modern brand of itinerant living, practiced especially by older … Continue reading Now Playing — Nomadland
Judas and the Black Messiah is a mightily ambitious undertaking. Directed by Shaka King, the film has the dual focus implied by the title. Judas is Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a petty criminal who’s picked up by the authorities after … Continue reading Now Playing — Judas and the Black Messiah
By his own account, writer-director Lee Isaac Chung wanted to share his own history in a way that it wasn’t actually his history. In the most basic reckoning, there’s nothing especially unique about that approach. It’s the very definition of … Continue reading Now Playing — Minari
The 40-Year-Old Version (Radha Blank, 2020). Employing impressive candor and sharp humor, Radha Blank makes her feature directorial debut with an autobiographical story about a playwright named Radha (played by Blank) who addresses the professional and personal frustration she feels … Continue reading Then Playing — The 40-Year-Old Version; She Dies Tomorrow; After Hours
The Little Things, the new thriller from writer-director John Lee Hancock, is set in 1990. Except for the narrative convenience of removing cellphones as an everyday tool for the law enforcement personnel, there’s no obvious reason to have this scenario … Continue reading Now Playing — The Little Things
Coffee for Two 