Black Panther movie with Chadwick Boseman. Directed and co-written by Ryan Coogler, Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther is the first big-budget release centering on a black superhero – played by Marshall and Message from the King actor Chadwick Boseman, T’Challa a.k.a. the Black Panther is the ruler…
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Trouble Is My Business with Brittney Powell. Co-written by actor/voice actor Tom Konkle, who also directed, and Xena: Warrior Princess actress Brittney Powell, Trouble Is My Business is a humorous homage to film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, among them John Huston’s The Maltese…
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Detroit movie street riot scene: The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow tackles the 1967 Detroit riots in “horribly real” and “deeply self-serving” 2017 release marketed as a “dramatic thriller.” Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Detroit’ movie: Horribly real semidocumentary or self-serving Hollywood depiction of…
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Christian movies: Starring Nicolas Cage, the widely panned 2014 apocalyptic thriller Left Behind was a box office bomb – unlike (relatively) recent popular “faith movies” such as Heaven Is for Real, Son of God, and War Room. A thought on the New Christian American Cinema:…
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Barry Obama (Devon Terrell) reads Ralph Ellison’s 1952 sociopolitical novel Invisible Man – not to be confused with H.G. Wells’ 1897 sci-fi novel The Invisible Man. ‘Barry’ & me: Finding common ground between this reviewer and U.S. President Barack Obama While thinking about Barry, Vikram…
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Don’t Breathe movie: Dylan Minnette is a burglar who discovers the hard way that blind man Stephen Lang is not quite like earlier blind film victims Audrey Hepburn (Wait Until Dark) and Mia Farrow (Blind Terror). ‘Don’t Breathe’ movie review: Fede Alvarez succeeds with horror…
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Captain America: Civil War: Chris Evans as rogue military leader vs. “Ayn Rand archetype of a self-made man.” ‘Captain America: Civil War’ review: So good it made film critic & Prince fan forget pop icon’s death April 21, 9:53 a.m. – I was sitting down…
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‘Chi-Raq’ movie with Teyonah Parris: Spike Lee has set ‘Lysistrata’ amidst Chicago’s urban warfare. Chiraq (one word) stands for the Chicago-Iraq combo. ‘Chi-Raq’ movie review: Ancient Greek comedy in 21st-century Chiraq setting The star of Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq is an astounding young actress named Teyonah…
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Trumbo movie: Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren superb as left-wing screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and right-wing gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. ‘Trumbo’ movie review: Highly entertaining ‘history lesson’ toplining an outstanding Bryan Cranston Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic…
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Room movie with Brie Larson as the character occupying the titular space. ‘Room’ movie review: Easy to appreciate, difficult to like The film Room, adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own 2010 novel, has been the talk of Hollywood since well before it was actually…
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Bread and Butter movie with Bobby Moynihan and Christine Weatherup. Late-life virginity is detrimental to your emotional health. ‘Bread and Butter’ movie review: Late-life virginity & other social anxieties in awkwardly romantic comedy The first insight of debuting feature film director Liz Manashil is that romantic comedies…
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Lord Montagu documentary. ‘Lord Montagu’ documentary: Anti-gay witch hunt victim became successful entrepreneur and National Motor Museum founder On first blush, the life of a Lord of the Realm, a Peer to the English monarchy, a child born with an actual silver spoon in his…
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In Stereo with Micah Hauptman and Beau Garrett: Wit and sarcasm. ‘In Stereo’: Witty & sarcastic romantic comedy In Stereo is a particular kind of romantic comedy – the kind full of characters that aren’t remotely romantic, that tend more toward wit and sarcasm rather than…
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‘Teacher of the Year’ movie features Keegan-Michael Key. ‘Teacher of the Year’ movie: Smart and funny socially conscious comedy Teacher of the Year manages to pull off one of the more difficult balancing acts in filmmaking: it actually is smart while still being funny. Teacher…
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Mad Max: Fury Road poster with The Dark Knight Rises’ Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky. ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ review: ‘A good movie on its own terms’ Mad Max, the first feature film of director George Miller and the second for the then 23-year-old Mel Gibson,…
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Selma movie with David Oyelowo as Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. ‘Selma’ movie review: Politically salient in the early 21st century The title of director Ava DuVernay’s historical drama Selma tells us what the film is about, while implying what it isn’t about.…