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A MOVIE PALACE TAKES A BOW

Leonard Maltin
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If you watched any of this year’s Tony Awards show you may have noticed that the ceremony didn’t take place at Radio City Music Hall, as it often does. The location was way uptown in Washington Heights at the United Palace, a huge, lavishly decorated movie palace which was built in 1930 as Loew’s 175th Street Theatre. Some friends and I got a tour of the place only last week, as crews were preparing for the Tonys, and it is a knockout. This won’t come as news to anyone who lives in the area or grew up there. The theater ceased operation in 1969 after showing 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was then purchased by and functioned as a church for the colorful evangelist known as Reverend Ike.…

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THE FLASH: TOO MANY COOKS

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Blame the ancient Greeks for inventing the general idea of the multiverse. Blame DC for propagating the concept in one of its Flash comics in 1961. And blame anyone you like for this hot mess of a film, directed by Andy Muschietti from a screenplay credited to Christina Hodson and Joby Harold. I found it especially frustrating because The Flash is an intriguing character and the film has some solid ideas. It also has a tendency to shoot itself in the foot, repeatedly. Ezra Miller is a compelling actor whose range has yet to be tested on screen. He’s well cast as Barry, the ultra-nerdy college grad whose super-powers came to him by accident: a chemical spill hypercharged by a bolt of lightning. This entire film is…

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NO HOLDS BARRED IN ‘NO HARD FEELINGS’

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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I am about to recommend a mildly raunchy R-rated comedy for one simple reason: I had fun watching it. I am so sick and tired of overlong, overproduced, formulaic “content” that this insignificant movie looks like a work of genius in comparison.  To be sure, it is not that. Not from the man who gave us Bad Teacher a decade ago. Jennifer Lawrence stars as a sassy, brassy woman who has lived in the seaside Long Island town of Montauk her whole life. She has burned so many bridges that now she’s at risk of losing her home, where her single mom raised her. In need of a car in order to keep her job, she answers an ad soliciting the services of an attractive young female…

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A BIT OF CRUMPET WITH MARK SEARBY

A Bit Of Crumpet
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Leonard here. My colleague Mark Searby is going to be sharing columns with us highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. Possibly the most famous big screen adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s historical action/adventure novel has been the 1993 film starring Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Chris O’Donnell and Tim Curry. It was soundtracked by that nails-down-a-chalkboard bad “All For Love” by Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart & Sting. Thankfully, many of the other big screen adaptations of The Three Musketeers haven’t had rubbish tie-in songs. But none of them have really stood out as much as the Brat Pack goes historical. Which seems quite tragic for director Richard Lester’s 1973 version because it’s a movie that deserves as much, if not more, attention than…

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‘YOU HURT MY FEELINGS’: A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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As a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Nicole Holofcener’s work I enjoy spending time in the world she creates and the characters who populate it. I may not be the most reliable person to assess her new feature, which reunites her with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (with whom she worked so well on Enough Said). That’s not to say that a newcomer can’t or won’t find You Hurt My Feelings amusing. It’s just that I find myself smiling at the actors’ entrances, before they’ve said or done anything. You might say I’m pre-conditioned. We meet Louis-Dreyfus as she carries a box of donuts into a store in Manhattan and I’m already having a good time. Tobias Menzies plays her husband, a therapist whose first clients of the day are unhappily married David…

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‘BLACKBERRY’ IS TRUE TO LIFE

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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As the passing parade rushes by there is a danger of forgetting events of the recent past. To his credit, Canadian actor and filmmaker Matt Johnson has dramatized the rise and fall of a hand-held device that was a game-changer in the world of communications, and precious to many people I know: the BlackBerry. This is not just another cautionary tale of nerds made good and greed turned sour. It’s a particular tale of one geeky genius, Mike Laziridis (Jay Baruchel), his partner and pal Doug Fregin (played by director and co-writer Johnson), and a fiercely ambitious businessman Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) who steps into their frat-boy world and launches them into the Big Time, beginning in 1996, bending the rules as he goes along.…

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THREE STOOGES, GROUCHO, BEAU GESTE AND OTHER OBSESSIONS

Blu-Ray/DVD Leonard Maltin
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The line between scholarship and obsession is often blurry. Academics are praised for spending years on a thesis or book, while superfans and enthusiasts are often dismissed as wackos. Here are five happy results of personal, passionate pursuits: four significant books and one great DVD/Blu-ray. A TOUR DE FARCE: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE THREE STOOGES ON THE ROAD by Gary Lassin (The Stoogeum) This 765-page oversized book is incredibly heavy to pick up—but having plopped it on my lap the other night I found it equally difficult to put down. I am a sucker for photos of vintage theater marquees and old newspaper ads touting movie-plus-vaudeville shows. This book has literally hundreds of such images, along with a detailed record of every stage appearance…

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