Menu

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
4328

The day after watching this important new film I read a fascinating interview with Martin Scorsese in The New Yorker. In it, he revealed that his original plan of faithfully adapting David Grann’s novel went aground after a first reading of the lengthy screenplay. Instead, he chose to emphasize the core relationship between two of its leading characters, skillfully played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. Indeed, their love story anchors the film. And, stimulated by the Osage people who surrounded him on location in Oklahoma, Scorsese incorporated details of wardrobe, behavior, speech, and customs that caught his eye into his picture.  Those details matter. Killers of the Flower Moon is a masterful example of intimate storytelling on a giant canvas. Di Caprio has never been better, and…

READ MORE >

SHE CAME TO ME

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
1668

As a fan of such films as Personal Velocity and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, I looked forward to the latest work by writer-director Rebecca Miller. But I can only describe She Came to Me as odd. A heavy-handed farce, it is acted to perfection by Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei but they can’t forge this collection of peculiarities into a cohesive whole. Dinklage plays a very dour though respected composer of operas. His stylish wife (Hathaway) is a therapist with more than a touch of OCD. Faced with writer’s block, Dinklage takes his dog for a walk in Manhattan and winds up in a bar where a sexy woman finds him amenable to her rather brazen come-on. Imagine her surprise (and ours) when their sexual encounter…

READ MORE >

MIRANDA’S VICTIM: AN IMPORTANT STORY

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
6985

The term “Miranda Rights” will be familiar to anyone who watches police procedurals on TV. This film follows the sexual assault case that led to American citizens being read their “Miranda rights” when being arrested. The woman who bravely pressed charges against her assailant under the condition that her name never be revealed broke her silence after sixty years—and this film is the result. (Ironically, her stealth led to the bill being named after her assailant instead of her!) The setting is a small town in 1963. Abigail Breslin gives a moving performance as an unworldly 18-year-old girl who is raped, at a time when the word itself was barely uttered in polite company, let alone in a courtroom. In a tight-knit community, admitting to…

READ MORE >

THE FILM BOOKS THAT MATTERED TO ME

Books Leonard Maltin
1876

Last week Scott Feinberg at The Hollywood Reporter published the results of a survey to determine the 100 greatest film books of all time. I was delighted to find that I made it to the list at #19 for Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. My family and I pored over the list together, pleased that so many fine books written by friends and colleagues were also on the roster. When we were finished my daughter Jessie asked if all of the books I grew up loving had been included—which got me thinking.  The following made a lasting impression on me when I was just a kid, on the way to becoming a lifelong movie addict. The first book I read, on loan from my local public library, was Mack Sennett’s…

READ MORE >

A CELEBRATION OF CLASSIC COMEDY

Blu-Ray/DVD Leonard Maltin
2671

This is a great time to be a fan of vintage comedy, from the silent era onward. A brace of new Blu-ray restorations and books will make life a little brighter for both the novice and the aficionado. Add to that a celebratory screening of Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last on its hundredth anniversary at the Academy Museum this coming Sunday and see how much there is to cheer about. LAUREL & HARDY, YEAR ONE: THE NEWLY RESTORED 1927 SILENTS (Flicker Alley) This collection, which was previewed on a big screen at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival, is the result of many years’ effort but definitely worth the wait. The original negatives of Laurel and Hardy’s silent short subjects are long gone, but Serge Bromberg, Eric…

READ MORE >

BOTTOMS: COMEDY FROM A FRESH NEW VOICE

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
2090

Writer-director Emma Seligman graduated from NYU just six years ago but she’s fast becoming a media darling. Two years ago her debut feature, Shiva Baby, earned her the John Cassavetes prize at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and made her a player on the New York indie scene. Her new film, Bottoms, is a campy, absurdist comedy about two gay high school friends (Rachel Sennott, star of Shiva Baby) and Ayo Edibiri (from television’s The Bear and Theater Camp) who are such social outcasts that they impulsively start a fight club, which leads to consequences they couldn’t anticipate. Bottoms plays with the tropes of such films as But I’m a Cheerleader and Clueless, but they are filtered through a distinctly different lens. Seligman wrote the screenplay with Sennott; they have no problem…

READ MORE >

LIAM NEESON IS AT IT AGAIN IN ‘RETRIBUTION’

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
2265

Acting careers cannot be charted or predicted; I’ve always thought that the best outcomes are a result of good choices and good luck in roughly equal measure. How the brooding Irish actor Liam Neeson wound up in globe-trotting action movies is one for the books…but that has become his specialty in the years since starring in Taken (2008). Fortunately, he has had ample opportunity to show us all that he has a robust sense of humor. But for now, it’s back to business. In Retribution he plays a successful but self-involved businessman who uses his wits—and sheer guts—to outsmart an unknown assailant who has planted a bomb in his car, which he drives around Berlin, with his two children trapped in the back seat. If that premise seems laughable…

READ MORE >

Subscribe to our newsletter

MERCH

Maltin tee on TeePublic

PODCAST

Maltin on Movies podcast

PAST MALTIN ON MOVIES PODCASTS

Past podcasts

PATREON

Maltin On Movies Patreon

APPEARANCES/BOOKING

Leonard Maltin appearances and booking

CALENDAR

April 2024
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930