‘THE LITTLE THINGS’ DON’T ADD UP
One of the seven deadly sins of moviemaking—perhaps the deadliest—is boring an audience. Having just been victimized by The Little Things the least I can do is share my experience with you. Denzel Washington stars as a former LAPD…
‘THE WHITE TIGER’ IS A KNOCKOUT
The White Tiger represents a perfect marriage between a gifted filmmaker and an incendiary novel. As it happens, director Ramin Bahrani is a close friend of novelist Aravind Adiga and has worked for years to bring this prize-winning book to…
NOW STREAMING: LET HIM GO
It’s rare to find a Hollywood movie featuring mature stars that’s worthy of their participation and has a decent story to tell. Let Him Go is based on a novel by Larry Watson, interpreted here by writer-director Thomas Bezucha (who won…
MLK/FBI: A CHANGING PERSPECTIVE
I was in my teens when the Civil Rights movement reached its apex in the 1960s. I wasn’t politically engaged back then, but I retain an indelible image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a man of innate…
SHOW BUSINESS DOCUMENTARIES OF 2019/2020 YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
MY DARLING VIVIAN All most people know about Johnny Cash’s first wife is what they saw in the 2005 biopic Walk the Line, where she was played by Ginnifer Goodwin. Essentially, Vivian Liberto stood in the way of the singer marrying…
‘ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI’: A TIME TRIP WORTH TAKING
The two most intriguing words in storytelling are “what if…” In the case of One Night in Miami, a gathering did take place in 1964 that brought together Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, football star Jim Brown, and pop singer Sam Cooke. No one…
‘SOUL’ TACKLES THE BIG QUESTIONS
I really wanted to love Soul…but I didn’t. Being a jazz fan gave me reason to anticipate something great from what I knew of this project. As it turns out, jazz is only one component of Soul, the other being a metaphysical…
