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AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH

In Theaters Movie Reviews
6566

Any filmmaker who asks a moviegoer to sit still for more than three hours had better have a really good reason. James Cameron does not. I lost an afternoon to the latest AVATAR movie and I can’t get it back. Let the record show that I fully appreciate the visual marvels Cameron has at his command. The characters and settings are so perfectly rendered that they put some earlier attempts at motion capture to shame. The integration of flesh-and-blood characters with the animated ones is absolutely seamless. Cameron doesn’t like using gimmicky 3-D but the opening minutes of this epic do serve to show off the dimensionality in a pleasing way. Then there is the matter of the bloated screenplay, which is credited to the…

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JAY KELLY

Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
5136

Watching the latest film from Noah Baumbach, which he wrote with the gifted actress Emily Mortimer, I couldn’t help but picture Marcello Mastroianni, taking stock of his life in Fellini’s 8 ½ and La Dolce Vita. Baumbach’s version of this overall idea is a bit long, somewhat messy—not unlike the main character—but it’s also exhilarating and, at times, brilliant. No one could pull this off except George Clooney, the quintessential Movie Star.  He puts no distance between him and Jay Kelly. Clooney isn’t winking at us at all; he surrenders completely to the character, surveying the circus that has become his life, and the people who populate it. Chief among them is Adam Sandler, who is revelatory in a dramatic part as Jay Kelly’s manager.…

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Nouvelle Vague 

Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
2540

Director Richard Linklater has one of the most unusual resumés of any American filmmaker. He has defined slacker culture—while discovering bright young talent—with his debut feature Dazed and Confused, explored three stages of a relationship (in Before Sunset, Before Sunrise and Before Midnight), watched an adolescent grow up over twelve years’ time (Boyhood), and experimented with animation built on live-action footage (Waking Life), just for starters. This year he has delivered a one-two punch with Blue Moon (set in 1943 NYC) and Nouvelle Vague. The latter film was shot in the French language on the streets of Paris, like the movie it depicts and emulates, Breathless. It is in black & white and shown in the old aspect ratio of approximately 3×4. Here are all the players who used their passion for film  to…

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LABORS OF LOVE: FROM HITCHCOCK TO LAUREL & HARDY

Books
2257

Everyone has to make a living. I don’t begrudge anyone who punches a clock or devotes his/herself to a job that isn’t terribly rewarding. But I have special admiration for  people who manage to pay the bills and still—often on the side, working nights and weekends—toil on projects that bring them pride and satisfaction. Ray Faiola is one such fellow. A STAR IS BORN: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE by Ray Faiola (Screen Archives) His latest endeavor is a CD of Max Steiner’s score for the 1937 version of this oft-remade Hollywood saga. He has drawn on the Steiner collection of acetate recordings which reside at Brigham Young University. The sound quality is surprisingly good and while the score is hardly one of Steiner’s best, it is…

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WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN NOVEMBER

Exclusive
1598

THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ALONSO DURALDE. YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN NOVEMBER: SPLITSVILLE, HARD BOILED, EYES WIDE SHUT, AND MORE! PLUS: CHRISTMAS! NEW RELEASE WALL Splitsville (Decal Neon): For my money, the funniest movie of 2025. Co-writers Michael Angelo Covino (who also directed) and Kyle Marvin star as two husbands whose marriages (to characters played by Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, respectively) fall apart over miscommunications and misunderstandings about fidelity and monogamy. It’s a character piece, a banter-filled screwball comedy, and a broadly physical farce, yet each component underscores rather than contradicts the other, and the four hilarious leads are bolstered by a brilliant ensemble that includes Nicholas Braun, O-T Fagbenle, and comedically…

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A BIT OF CRUMPET PT. 2

Exclusive
1345

Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. Taxi Driver. Death Wish. The Warriors. These, and more, New York set films really captured the grime-y look of the city in the 1970s. That sort of look where all colours are washed out. Grey is the brightest colour on the spectrum, and even then, it’s a dull grey. There’s a sea of brown too. That unpleasant look of 70s New York was captured many times in the cinematography of some of the grittier films of that decade. Night of the Juggler, which came right at the start of the next decade, still has that look to it. A sleaze-y look…

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A BIT OF CRUMPET PT. 1

A Bit Of Crumpet Exclusive
1197

Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. I’ve always been a sucker for films about Robin Hood. Maybe it’s because I was born & bred in Nottinghamshire, so the legend of Robin looms large in every corner of the county. Over the decades many Robin Hood films have tried, and most have failed, to capture the true spirit of the outlaw. The high watermark of Robin Hood films is still Disney’s animated adventure from 1973. Almost two decades prior to Disney’s sing-a-long Robin Hood, Hammer Films released their own Robin Hood film. Men of Sherwood Forest came four years before the studio would cement itself as one of the…

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