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“JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4”; a riveting cinematic experience!
“John Wick: Chapter 4” opens with a series of bloody punches and then uses a direct homage to David Lean’s 1962 classic “Lawrence of Arabia” to take the audience into the wild world of the most resilient assassin ever to grace the screen.
Chad Stahelski’s original “John Wick” was wire-tight in its tale of a lone killer seeking revenge. The filmmaker used its violent more >
NEWS
The paths to justice are manifold. Reimagining prison sentencing with “THE RECALL: REFRAMED” dir. by Rebecca Richman Cohen | TALK
When Brock Turner was handed down a sentence of just six months in prison for a sexual assault case that occurred on the Stanford University campus in 2015, a collective outrage at ... more >
“I GOT A MONSTER”; documentary filmmaker Kevin Abrams on dissecting on film one of the American East Coast’s most egregious police corruption scandals | TALK
When Kevin Abrams started work on his documentary “I Got a Monster” in 2018, he was determined that retelling the story of Baltimore’s corrupt Gun Trace Task Force not traffic in ... more >
Is there anything more important than cinema?
Critics have not been kind to “Empire of Light,” the film about cinema. Sam Mendes’s film is not a “Cinema Paradiso” redux nor, I think, does it aim to be, but comes across as a ... more >
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
“JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4”; a riveting cinematic experience!
“John Wick: Chapter 4” opens with a series of bloody punches and then uses a direct homage to David Lean’s 1962 classic “Lawrence of Arabia” to take the audience into the wild world of the ... more >
“DEVIL’S PEAK” is trouble. It’s a bad film | REVIEW
The sins of the father weigh heavily in Ben Young’s “Devil’s Peak," a new film that wants to be a modern “At Close Range" but doesn’t have the depth to carry its screenplay to the finish ... more >
Oddly-paced “Creed III” is the weakest of the franchise and Stallone was missed; REVIEW
Sylvester Stallone had a say in crafting Rocky Balboa’s character arc in the first “Creed” and co-wrote the screenplay for the sequel. Now comes “Creed III” to finish out the trilogy, and ... more >
‘There was something called showmanship when you attended a theater’; “BACK TO THE DRIVE-IN” review
The drive-in theater, the sound was never great and the picture not the sharpest, airplane noise, roaring trains, right in the middle of a big scene, rain or thick fog. As April Wright’s ... more >
SANTA BARBARA FILM FESTIVAL: 6 great films to check out
Festival season is in full swing, with some astonishing films that are sure to either be seen in a theaters or on a streaming platform soon. Here are six films from the Santa Barbara ... more >
BRIEFLY NOTED: Judd Hirsch in “iMORDECAI”
Small and unexpected things can sometimes change your entire world. Mordecai (Judd Hirsch) likes to fix things, but his phone is from twenty years ago and is held together with duct tape ... more >
“MARLOWE”; by-the-book noir is eye-catcher! | REVIEW
Ceiling fans, a dame of dubious motivations, drugs, sex, the sinister side of Hollywood, top hats and tommy guns, high stops from above ceiling fans, they’re all here in “Marlowe,” the new ... more >
Trapped in an abusive relationship: “ALICE, DARLING”
In director Mary Nighy’s “Alice, Darling,” the toll an abusive relationship takes on the victim is explored through a subtly observed screenplay and Ana Kendrick’s surprising dramatic ... more >
