THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE
If someone submitted this story as a piece of fiction, no one would believe it. The notion that a popular baseball catcher had a superior intellect and wound up spying for the U.S. government is simply too outlandish…but it’s…
THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
The gifted Quebecois writer-director Denys Arcand has only himself to blame for the slight feeling of disappointment that his new film engenders. The man who gave us such provocative films as Jesus of Montreal, The Decline of the American Empire, Stardom,…
ROCKETMAN
First, the good news: Taron Egerton gives a breathtakingly good performance in Rocketman. He even accomplishes the near-impossible: making you forget you’re not watching the real Elton John. The musical numbers that punctuate the movie are propulsive and imaginatively staged.…
BE NATURAL: A WOMAN REWRITES FILM HISTORY
Be Natural is a revelatory film about pioneering female filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché. Writer-director Pamela B. Green has done a superior job of telling her story in this lively account of a neglected woman. The briskly-paced documentary not only sets film…
DIANE: A SLICE OF LIFE WORTH SAMPLING
Mary Kay Place is an asset to any movie she’s in, and in Diane she is the center of attention. In his narrative filmmaking debut, writer-director Kent Jones has built a story around her, based on observations of his…
‘DUMBO’ BEGS THE QUESTION: WHY?
Disney’s new live-action Dumbo isn’t awful….but it isn’t very good, either. Why waste so much money and talent on a film that is foredoomed to take second place to a classic? I know it’s all about making money, yet surely there…
US: JORDAN PEELE’S COMPLEX TAKE ON HORROR
Get Out announced the arrival of an exciting and important new voice in American film: writer-director Jordan Peele. We already knew what a talented actor and comedic artist he was, but the originality of this trenchant social satire was something…
