WORTH CALLING: THE NEW ‘GHOSTBUSTERS’
I am not a fan of remakes, by and large, but I don’t consider it sacrilege to have rebooted this 1984 comedy hit…nor do I think it’s foolish to have cast it with females in the leading roles. In…
SHEDDING LIGHT ON FILM NOIR
The reported death of DVDs and Blu-rays is decidedly premature, especially when it comes to specialized product that film buffs crave. Flicker Alley has released two rare features in conjunction with the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film…
Susan Sarandon Shines in ‘The Meddler’
I feared that The Meddler would be a one-joke movie; the “joke” being that a widow (Susan Sarandon) moves from New Jersey to California to be near her daughter (Rose Byrne) and just won’t leave her alone. Cell phone…
Trapped at 10 Cloverfield Lane
To answer your first question, this film has little in common with Cloverfield, despite the involvement of producer J.J. Abrams and others connected with that inventive and genuinely frightening film. For one thing, this is not a “found footage”…
Bored With 70mm? Try Magnascope!
Now that Quentin Tarantino has revived Ultra Panavision 70 and released a major film in 70mm, and the American Cinemathèque has screened a handful of vintage large-format features, the Northwest Chicago Film Society is giving its audience an experience…
The Finest Hours—Action and Adventure on a Grand Scale
Heroes don’t always wear capes or fly through the air. This Disney production tells the story of an ordinary guy who led three fellow Coast Guard men on a perilous mission in 1952 that is still considered a history-making…
Michael Caine Regains His ‘Youth’
Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty, Il Divo) doesn’t so much tell stories as paint pictures. I wouldn’t know how to outline the narrative of his latest film, Youth; all I can say is that it conjures up…
