The Best Screenplays of 2019

The 2019 film year may have started off soft, followed by an underwhelming summer season, but from autumn on, it rallied. More and more critics are making “Top 20 Best Lists” this month, and the Academy shouldn’t have to struggle to come up with seven to ten worthy Best Picture nominees for February’s Oscar ceremony. […]
What Makes Gangster Stories So Endlessly Fascinating?

With The Irishman, Martin Scorsese has once again made a gangster movie that’s earning big box office bucks and capturing a ton of Oscar buzz. Cinema fans love the genre, going back to the early 1930s when stars like James Cagney (The Public Enemy) and Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar) made films about the underworld […]
Martin Scorsese Meditates on Age and Regret in “The Irishman”

Much has been made about the technology director Martin Scorsese used in The Irishman to de-age stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. Indeed, it is a marvel, if not a distraction at first, to see the decades digitally erased off of the stars, but it actually helps the idea of the film […]