ONE MORE ROUND: ‘BLEED FOR THIS’
We’ve been there and seen much of this before: the story of a tough-talking fighter who doesn’t know when to quit, as befits his working-class New England family. For the record, writer-director Ben Younger says he deliberately didn’t watch…
LOOK OUT FOR ‘FANTASTIC BEASTS’
The success of this movie seems to have been predetermined by its pedigree (an original screenplay by J.K. Rowling—her first) and its promise of an elaborate new burst of imagination linked, however tangentially, to the wizarding world of Harry…
ELLE: A DANGEROUS GAME
Anyone familiar with the work of director Paul Verhoeven should expect a potent, visceral experience from the innocently-titled French film Elle. Isabelle Huppert is a superb actress whose face can become a mask, hiding or revealing her feelings as…
STILL MORE DISNEY BOOKS!
It should be clear by now that the subject of Walt Disney is inexhaustible, especially when scholars dig into the archives. Four new books offer fresh information, background material, and artwork that not only justify their existence but make…
HACKING AWAY AT ‘HACKSAW RIDGE’
A great story doesn’t always translate into a great movie, and that’s the disappointing case with Hacksaw Ridge. No one could invent a more impressive or inspiring tale than the true story of Desmond Doss, a backwoods Virginia boy…
ARRIVAL: A PUZZLE WORTH SOLVING
A movie doesn’t have to spell everything out for me if I get a sense that the filmmaker is offering me something to ponder and not simply teasing. I don’t pretend to understand everything about Arrival, but instead of…
VISITING JOHNNY MERCER’S MOON RIVER
No visit to Savannah, Georgia is complete without paying tribute to one of the city’s favorite sons, songwriter supreme Johnny Mercer. Although he won four Academy Awards (for “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” “In the Cool,…
