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Othello

“The main players deliver capital-A ACH-TING! in this adaptation of the Bard’s tale of revenge and racism, but it’s all undercut by a flatlined directorial job. This isn’t a movie. This is a filmed stage play in an almost literal sense as there’s one set with rotating parts and acts walking i” read more

A Midsummer Night's Dream

“A translation of director Max Reinhardt’s Hollywood Bowl production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most sumptuous, shimmering, and enthralling adaptations of Shakespeare’s work. Yes, the use of movie stars was and remains controversial (the more things change, right), but there’s s” read more

God’s Own Country

“God’s Own Country finds tenderness to be the antidote to emotional abuse and a way to reinforce emotional strength. I suppose finding any tenderness in the Yorkshire countryside is a feat in itself as the frigid, windy landscapes aren’t exactly an inviting landscape to thrive in. This miserablis” read more

TMNT

“I was exactly the target age for a rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise that wasn’t explicitly kiddie back in 2007. I know I’ve watched this movie at least twice, each time thinking I hadn’t seen it before only to realize I had but forgotten practically all of it. That about summariz” read more

Hollywood Shuffle

“Well, it’s been nearly 33 years since Hollywood Shuffle came out and its various critiques of Hollywood still largely hold true. Yes, the miniscule budget and ramshackle narrative structure mean that it is only as good as any particular satirical scene, but enough of them are smart and barbed to o” read more

A Man for All Seasons

“Fred Zinnemann made several great films of the studio era, like From Here to Eternity, High Noon, and The Nun’s Story. His style was spartan craftsmanship with an emphasis on the psychological reality of his characters, and a keen eye for casting that brought some of the best performances of their” read more

The Crimson Kimono

“Is Samuel Fuller a B-movie poet or a masculine cult figure of the American cinema? A little bit of both, in my opinion as it depends on the film. Even then, sometimes the film in question is a blurring of the two modes.   Take The Crimson Kimono, a pleasurable little jewel that lands somewhere b” read more

Diva

“Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva is all impeccably detailed frames, cool, smooth surfaces awash in bold colors like pinks and whites and wrapped up in moody lighting and scoring. The details of the plot are inconsequential and preposterous as they merely exist to serve the mood of the piece. Diva is no” read more

Thank God It’s Friday

“What a fascinating and godawful curio this is. Can something with a banging soundtrack really be all that bad? In the answer, it would appear, is yeah, it can. Famous for being the first big screen role of Debra Winger, containing Donna Summer’s immortal “Last Dance” (which won the Best Song O” read more

Footlight Parade

“Of Busby Berkeley’s three 1933 Warner Brothers films, I would place Footlight Parade in the bronze slot with Gold Diggers of 1933 in the gold and 42nd Street in silver. I suppose a lot of the enjoyment one gets out of Footlight Parade is your ability to stomach the likes of Dick Powell and Ruby Ke” read more

Riffraff

“Not only had Jean Harlow learned to act by 1936’s Riffraff, but her hair wasn’t the aggressive platinum blonde of her ribald days. She was at the height of her beauty here, and in the middle of another change of screen persona. The softening of Harlow’s bad girl act was one of trying to find a” read more

Reckless

“What a curio 1935’s Reckless is. Not just for the backstage dynamics involved in its making but the morbid bits of autobiography and uneasy tonal switches between screwball musical comedy and torrid melodrama. With the Pre-Code years behind them, MGM sought to turn Jean Harlow’s rounded figure i” read more

Uptown Saturday Night

“Sidney Poitier’s third film as a director, Uptown Saturday Night, is a delightful, rowdy minor work. His work as a director is still a bit too stuffy and heavy-handed for what is essentially a situation comedy blown to feature-length, but it’s still enjoyable. He counterbalances this stiff direc” read more

A Warm December

“Much like 1965’s A Patch of Blue, 1973’s A Warm December finds Sidney Poitier as healing presence for a woman. The major difference is that A Warm December plays like a combination of Roman Holiday and Love Story, but with an all-black cast. Poitier is a widower who travels to London and meets C” read more

Buck and the Preacher

“Sidney Poitier’s directorial debut is a western that continually threatens to be more interesting than it is. The story concerns Buck (Poitier) leading a wagon train of newly freed slaves westward, Preacher (Harry Belafonte), a greedy ex-con posing as a man of the word, and Deshay (Cameron Mitchel” read more

In the Heat of the Night

“The 1967 Academy Awards is widely considered one of the turning points and a viable symbol of the movie industry in full-blown identity crisis. Even the Wikipedia page for the event states: “The Best Picture nominees were an eclectic group of films reflecting the chaos of the era.” You had the w” read more

Duel at Diablo

“Based on a short story by Marvin H. Albert called “Apache Rising,” Duel at Diablo throws a lot of big ideas and big stars at the screen hoping something will stick. Not a lot does as it feels both overwhelmed and underthought. As beautiful as the backdrops are, as thrilling as the two major set ” read more

A Patch of Blue

“Sidney Poitier’s transformation from individual performer to all-encompassing symbol of an entire race as the lone black star of prominence is evident by the mid-60s. His thankless role of therapist to an alt-right Bobby Darin in Pressure Point was a red flag of this happening, as was his great wo” read more