| DRAGNET |
"Side-Splitting Entertainment"
Jack Sommersby says... "Thankfully devoid of the kind of cheap lowbrow humor on sad display today." (more)
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| KEEP THE CHANGE |
"An Unheralded Low-Key Masterpiece."
Jack Sommersby says... "It's reminiscent of John Mellencamp's extraordinary "Falling from Grace" that came out the same year." (more)
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| SUSPECT |
"An Illogical but Semi-Prime 'Suspect'"
Jack Sommersby says... "Not a box-office success, but it's not any more negligible than the more financially successful "Jagged Edge."" (more)
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| HARRY CHAPIN: WHEN IN DOUBT, DO SOMETHING |
"He did something."
Rob Gonsalves says... "Almost everyone in the new documentary "Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something" smiles when talking about him, and Chapin himself, who died at 38 in a 1981 car wreck, is seldom seen in the movie without a smile." (more)
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| TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, THE |
"Good enough."
Rob Gonsalves says... "If the titular trial of the Chicago 7 hadn’t happened, writer-director Aaron Sorkin would’ve had to invent it." (more)
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| ST. ELMO'S FIRE |
"A Fine 'Brat Pack' Picture"
Jack Sommersby says... "Underrated and unfairly dismissed." (more)
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| TALENT FOR THE GAME |
"Olmos Hits A Homer, the Film at Least a Double"
Jack Sommersby says... "Worthy of rediscovery." (more)
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| LUPIN III: THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO |
"Both an impressive first feature and a solid franchise entry."
Jay Seaver says... ""The Castle of Cagliostro" is often marketed in the United States without highlighting how it is part of an ongoing series of comic-inspired productions that first appeared on Japanese television in 1971 and has been in almost continual production in one form or another since. It is, after all, Hayao Miyazaki's first feature, and as such fits a certain part of a familiar narrative: The work-for-hire thing he did before being able to start his own studio that nevertheless shows glimpses of his true talent. It turns out to be a rare case of the movie that satisfies both a franchise's fanbase and an artist's, a familiar adventure that benefits from having someone as great as Miyazaki working on it." (more)
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| BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM |
"Tutar And The Monkey Man"
Peter Sobczynski says... "The problem with a number of movie comedies these days is that they start off amusingly enough (well, some of them do) and then tend to run out of steam after a while to the point where they are practically dragging themselves to the end credits. In the case of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make benefit Once glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (which will be referred to from here on in by only the first three words of that title), the unexpected and shot-in-secret sequel to the wildly popular 2006 shock comedy hit from Sacha Baron Cohen, it is perhaps only fitting that the formulation here is backwards. It starts off rather unpromisingly, spends the next hour going through a series of scenes that combine a few huge laughs with a good amount of aimlessness and then concludes with a final half-hour filled with sharp humor and genuinely outrageous moments, including one jaw-dropper that could well mark the final nail in the coffin for at least one particularly public and normally shameless public figure of note. (I will not go into this moment in any detail but, suffice it to say, if you want to experience it completely unawares, you should try to watch the film as soon as it drops on Amazon Prime this Friday because it will become the subject of much conversation once people experience it for themselves.)" (more)
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| LUPIN THE THIRD (2014) |
"Can't quite make such an animated character work in live action."
Jay Seaver says... "The characters in this live-action take on the "Lupin III" comics has enough English-language dialogue on the one hand and a filmmaker in who has worked in both Japan and Hollywood on the other that one wonders to what extent the studio had visions of a global release that never really happened (it doesn't appear to have had theatrical or home releases in the United States at all). That would serve to at least partially explain why this feels like a movie trying to serve multiple audiences and likely not satisfying any; for all that this has always been a flexible franchise, it seems stretched into directions that don't entirely work." (more)
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