I’m always skeptical when a film receives too much hype. With the on-again, off-again quality of American fare, I try not to set my hopes too high, especially when it comes to a film about the D.C. Comics's The Joker, by the director of “The Hangover” series. It is with great pleasure that I report that, while the film itself isn’t the cinematic masterpiece that some have christened it, Todd ... more >
MOVIES
“Joker,” a morality-defying, two-hour drop down a man’s impaired psyche
Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz and Frances Conroy
Directed by Todd Phillips
Almodovar delivers moving tribute to cinema and love with “Dolor y gloria”
And here's me breathing a sigh of relief. Almodovar has made another masterpiece, a work of art. “Dolor y Gloria" is sublime! I’d become disillusioned with the El Deseo jefe. “Broken embraces,” “La Piel que lo habito” were colorful, if shoddily-written films that lacked substance and felt saturated with fabricated emotions. Those were films, I could but only deduce, made by a filmmaker in ... more >
“3 From Hell” : The Satans are coming
Sheri Moon Zombie, Sid Haig and Bill Moseley
Directed by Rob Zombie
Rob Zombie’s latest film “3 From Hell” is the third film in his Firefly Clan trilogy and quite simply one of his best ones. This is a blood-soaked homage to the seventies grindhouse films that Zombie grew up admiring and the kind of wild genre craziness that became a major influence on both his music and directorial style. This is intense genre filmmaking on high levels. Zombie has been ... more >
“Tattoo of revenge,” tipping the scales of justice down in Murderville
Diana Lein, Irving Peña and César Romero Medrano
Directed by Julián Hernández
Mexico City in the nineties was a place where the harshest crimes went unpunished due to money and a corrupt police force. Aida (an excellent and tortured performance from Diana Lein, an actress to watch!) serves up revenge for young women who have been raped and maltreated and weren’t able to find resolution on their own. Working out of the back of a nightclub, the women come to her with ... more >
“BULL” (directed by Annie Silverstein)
How screwed up is America? In Annie Silverstein’s “Bull,” when young Kris (Amber Havard) gets arrested for breaking and entering and she’s offered a deal, she replies, “can’t you just send me to juvie?” The level of resignation that Kris, or other people like her in real life, must feel, is both baffling and dismaying. In Trump’s America, people like her who go through difficulties just shrug it ... more >
Viveik Kalra gives star-making performance in “Blinded by the light”
Viveik Kalra, Kulvinder Ghir and Nell Williams
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Whether you like Bruce Springsteen or not, I dare any viewer of this movie not to be completely swept away by the pure joy of the infectious “Blinded by the Light.” Inspired by Sarfraz Manzoor’s 2007 memoir “Greetings from Bury Park,” the film “is inspired by the words and music of Bruce Springsteen.” Set in 1987 Luton (a working-class town in southeast England) we are introduced to Javed, ... more >
TAKE TWO – “Once upon a time in Hollywood”
Leonardo Di Caprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
I think cinema, I love cinema, I see a great number of films during the year and always have. If asked to list great director names, I would reply, Fellini, Bergman, Fassbinder, Kurosawa and Kubrick. Though a hundred names would barely begin to cover it. But… and oh, yes, Tarentino. Despite not much enjoying his movies—too much violence, albeit often humorous, rivers of blood, and a permanent ... more >