Film Review: “Bullet Train”

Welcome to late-stage Brad

Balletic Fighting
Brad Pitt and Bad Bunny star in Bullet Train.

Fading assassins looking to complete the latest job. Low-level criminals looking for a clean exit from the life. Under-loved princesses looking to deal with daddy once and for all. Others looking for nothing more than cold, hard revenge. And in the middle of it all is bucket-hat Brad Pitt. In his latest, Bullet Train (or: Bucket-Hat Brad with a Bullet), Pitt romps, skips, hops, twirls, guffaws, and even sings his way through an overly-complicated, needlessly-sprawling, yet more than semi-entertaining roller coaster. Continue reading “Film Review: “Bullet Train””

Film Review: “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”

Basking in the total Nick Cageness of Nick Cage

He's reached total Cage
He’s reached total Cage.

If you live in California, Nicolas Cage is a Prius. If you live in Alabama, Nicolas Cage is an F-150. If you live in Colorado, Nicolas Cage is a Subaru. Ubiquitous, omnipresent, universal don’t begin to describe his career. Simple descriptors, most adjectives, even words themselves, fail to cover the sheer, gargantuan, remark-ability of the man’s effect on our collective souls. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent””

Film Review: “The Northman”

Unbelievable physical detail can’t overcome blocky storytelling and a mawkish core

The Northmen doing their thing
The Northmen doing their thing.

In the new Robert Eggers film The Northman, a young prince in proto-Europe’s far north swears vengeance for his father’s murder, is driven mad by revenge, and faces his rival in a climactic battle. Sound familiar? Continue reading “Film Review: “The Northman””

Film Feature: Chris Piper’s Top 10 Films of 2021

Chris Piper's Top 10 films of 2021
Chris Piper’s Top 10 films of 2021

Films make a big comeback in 2021

2021 in American cinema was remarkable in how it seemed so… normal. Whatever the numbers say, my feeling was that the year started a little slowly, then found its footing around March, then kicked into something like a normal gear over the summer. As fall approached, and it seemed to me more theaters reopened, a slate of films pretty much like those in 2019 awaited. Winter seemed to bring somewhat larger than normal crop of smaller-budget films, and here we are, at the end of the year with a number of solid films released, awards season in full swing, and waiting for Oscar noms in just over a month.

So here are my top 10 films of 2021. See these 10 films in any order you want, preferably in the theater, but on your couch if you must. Here’s hoping for more of more of the same in 2022. Continue reading “Film Feature: Chris Piper’s Top 10 Films of 2021”

Film Review: “The French Dispatch”

Anderson’s French Dispatch is precious and pretty, with an emotional punch

The French Dispatch
(From L-R): Tilda Swinton, Lois Smith, Adrien Brody, Henry Winkler and Bob Balaban in the film THE FRENCH DISPATCH. Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

Fox Searchlight has finally released Wes Anderson’s very long-awaited new film The French Dispatch, and this sentence pretty much sums it up: “Leutenant Nescaffier is emphatically celebrated among cooks, cops and capitaines, not to mention swindlers, stoolies and snitches, as the great exemplar of police cooking.”

If that sentence – with its very sneaky verb, its obviously overbalanced serial commas, its all too visible use of French terms, and finally, its curious “police cooking”- makes you smile, laugh, giggle, catch your breath, or even tingle, then this is your film. If not, then there’s nothing I, or this review, can do for you.

Continue reading “Film Review: “The French Dispatch””

Film Review: “The Card Counter”

The closer we get, the farther away we slip

La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) tries to connect with Bill (Oscar Isaac).

In Paul Schrader’s new offering The Card Counter, the venerable writer/director proves that exploring the question of why humans can never quite find real connection will always make for worthwhile, if somewhat challenging viewing. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Card Counter””

Film Review: “The Summer of Soul”

The revolution is finally televised

Gladys Knight and the Pips at the Harlem Cultural Festival
Gladys Knight and the Pips at the Harlem Cultural Festival

The scene: Thousands of music lovers packed around a stage. Guitars, drums, keys, horns, harmonicas all playing together, and together getting heads to bob and bodies to sway. It’s the summer of ‘69, and this isn’t Woodstock. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Summer of Soul””

Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #3 – “Home” Review

When doing the time isn’t enough for doing the crime

Marvin (Jake McLaughlin) returns home after 17 years in prison
Marvin (Jake McLaughlin) returns home after 17 years in prison.

American cinema and television thoroughly covers the events leading up to someone’s arrest, trial and conviction or exoneration. But what happens after prison, when the convicted must return to their community, and face an entirely different kind of trial?  Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #3 — “Home” Review”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #2 – “Supercool” Review

Filmic FOMO

Gilbert (left) and Neil (right) Just Dance at a high school party
Gilbert (left) and Neil (right) Just Dance at a high school party.

Oh, that Superbad, that super, super, somewhat bad 2007 film that spawned, or launched, or squirted out a thousand imitators. Well, maybe ten or so, but it sure feels like a thousand. Supercool, the subject of this review, and an entry in the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, is a tag-along that desperately, and I mean desperately, wants to get into the big kids’ party. It’s the lonely, undersexed, over-analyzed teen with a gawky face, messy hair, and a loopy gait who spends all night looking for the party, only to find it’s been broken up by the cops. Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #2 — “Supercool” Review”

Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #1 – Strawberry Mansion Review

Dream logic, logically dreamed

James Preble (Kentucky Audley) scans dreams to audit
VHS makes a comeback.

The writer, director, actor, and veteran Samuel Fuller is said to have remarked that the only way to make a truly realistic war film is to fill a theater full of patrons, then have soldiers shoot at them from behind the screen. No matter how realistic, a war film is still a film. 
Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #1 — Strawberry Mansion Review”