I don’t care for the title because it doesn’t reflect the main character, Julie, which I believe it references. Sure, Julie is narcissistic, selfish, thoughtless, immature, rather superficial and sometimes foolish, but she isn’t the worst person in the world. […]
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Death on the Nile (2022) ☆ ☆ ☆
This is the second Hercule Poirot detective film directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh. Curiously, both this title and its predecessor, Murder on the Orient Express, were remakes of films from the 1970s. I don’t understand why Branagh didn’t start with […]
Continue reading »Moonfall (2022) ☆ ☆
My first 2022 movie viewing is so light I felt like I could have floated out of my theater seat. Popcorn movies are fun; this one is pure bubblegum, and I just shake my head seeing that Roland Emmerich was […]
Continue reading »Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) ☆ ☆ ☆
The newest Spider-Man adventure is spectacularly ambitious, marvelously nostalgic and quite entertaining. It is easily the most popular film of the pandemic era and its IMDb rating is currently 30th all time. Everybody loves it. I enjoyed it — more than […]
Continue reading »The Power of the Dog (2021) ☆ ☆ ☆
A character study in the guise of a modern western (circa 1925), The Power of the Dog is the darling movie of the current awards season, garnering twelve Academy Award nominations and is the favorite to win at least a few, […]
Continue reading »The Unholy (2021) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Of all the various types of horror films, those which play with religious belief and iconography are the most unsettling to me. I remember not being willing to see the original version of The Omen back when I was a teen […]
Continue reading »Licorice Pizza (2021) ☆ ☆ ☆
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the acclaimed filmmakers of our time, and most divisive. I’ve liked a couple of them (his early work, Hard Eight and Boogie Nights) and hated others (Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love). Mostly, I like Licorice Pizza, a coming-of-age […]
Continue reading »Nightmare Alley (2021) ☆ ☆ 1/2
As handsomely mounted and slickly filmed as any period drama in recent memory, this grotesque foray into the depths of human nature and depravity is certainly something to see. It is a remake of a popular and well regarded 1947 […]
Continue reading »Minari (2020) ☆ ☆
A year ago, Minari was a favorite at the Oscars, eventually winning one of its six nominations. I’ve finally caught up to it; I still haven’t seen most of last year’s contenders, much less those for 2021. But this is a […]
Continue reading »Werewolves Within (2021) ☆ ☆ 1/2
A common red flag for movie quality occurs when a movie is based on a video game. There are exceptions, of course, and this may be one of them. Happily, the film doesn’t play like a game — at least […]
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