“Sharp Objects” Tells Its Murderous Tale as a Mood Piece
HBO’s “Sharp Objects” concluded its eight-episode run Sunday night with as many frightening moments as one might expect in a horror movie. It’s not of that genre, even though Jason Blum, the head of Blumhouse Productions and all their frightener franchises, was one of the limited series’ executive producers. Some may have even quantified the […]
“Searching” Displays Old School Mystery in the Most Modern of Ways
Hollywood has made a number of thrillers that have been set on the computer screen in the past decade, including superior entries like 2014’s “Open Windows” and this past spring’s “Unfriended: Dark Web.” It’s no longer novel to tell a tale through the gimmick of desktop windows and its emails, social media posts, and streaming […]
“Crazy Rich Asians” Brings Back Romantic Comedy with Gleam and Grace
Rare is the film one can describe as effervescent, but “Crazy Rich Asians” is just that. It bubbles like champagne, gleams like gold, and keeps up an energy level seldom seen onscreen these days. As if those accomplishments aren’t enough, it’s also the rarest of rare films – a mainstream, big-budgeted film with 70 speaking […]
The Scares are Pretty Thin in “Slender Man”
There is one sublime moment in the new horror movie “Slender Man” that suggests the subtler and more disturbing film this one could have been. A couple of teen girls are searching online for information regarding a supernatural creature the web has dubbed “Slender Man.” Amongst the video clips they discover is one occurring in […]
Spike Lee’s Brilliant “BlacKkKlansman” Indicts Our Nation’s Past and Present
All period pieces comment on the present. Spike Lee’s new film “BlacKkKlansman”, about a couple of undercover cops infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs in 1972, not only indicts bigotry in America 40 years ago, but the continued presence of white nationalism on our national stage. For good measure, Lee also tosses in some […]
