LOGAN LUCKY: NOT AS GOOD AS ITS CAST
Logan Lucky is a likable-enough redneck heist movie set behind the scenes at a NASCAR championship event. At two hours it’s longer than it ought to be and takes too much time recapping how the central caper was executed at…
CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER: EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
I am a sucker for this kind of film. California Typewriter celebrates the durable, once-ubiquitous device that computers put out of business and the grass-roots spirit that drives people like Tom Hanks, John Mayer, and the late Sam Shepard to do…
FAREWELL TO JERRY LEWIS
I’ll never forget the first time I set eyes on Jerry Lewis. I was six years old and my parents took me to see The Delicate Delinquent. It was his first solo movie without Dean Martin, but I didn’t know that…
TINTED TALKIES
I recently wrote about the DVD release of William S. Hart’s Western Wagon Tracks from Olive Films with artistic title cards and authentic tints, taken from an original 35mm print at the Library of Congress. (to read the article, click HERE). I’ve always associated the process…
THE GLASS CASTLE: A BEST-SELLER COMES UP SHORT
The Glass Castle is a deeply-felt adaptation of journalist Jeannette Walls’s best-selling memoir about growing up with impoverished and irresponsible parents. The story is told piecemeal and in retrospect, with Brie Larson as the adult Jeannette, who has made a…
FROM ALBERT BROOKS TO BETTY GRABLE: A SURVEY OF DVDs AND BLU-RAYS
I am back on an exercise bike every morning, which gives me an opportunity to catch up with DVDs and Blu-rays. Obviously, I’m not going to screen Lawrence of Arabia this way, so I choose my discs carefully: in some cases…
WIND RIVER: A WINTRY FILM WORTHY OF SUMMER VIEWING
Having scripted Sicario and Hell and High Water, Taylor Sheridan has taken on directorial duties as well with his new film Wind River and scored a solid hit. Jeremy Renner plays a man who works for the government fish and game department on an…
