Let me start by saying that this is a straight-up monster-in-the-closet movie. I'm not sure what "the mind of Stephen King" was conjuring in his short story The Boogeyman, but my childhood fear of the…
There is something inescapably Portlandia about Showing Up. To be fair, it does take place in (unnamed) Portland at the (unnamed) Oregon College of Art and Craft (a real institution that has sadl…
A few years ago, I went to see Judy Blume on her book tour for her latest (and she says last) novel for adults, In the Unlikely Event. Town Hall was packed with "women of a certain age" and the room b…
For a movie that is about Michael Jordan, the first thing you notice is that you don't see Michael Jordan. Sure, there are a few moments of the real Jordan in quick news clips, but as a character he i…
What is more terrifying? The fact that technology traces almost every aspect of one's daily life so that it is almost impossible to truly disappear? Or the fact that even with all of the shared techno…
Early in In Viaggio, a Coast Guard radar antenna spins in the night, a stark visual accompanied only by the harrowing audio of desperate migrants pleading for help as their boat sinks off the coast of…
Allison (Florence Pugh) is a young woman who has it all. We meet her at her own engagement party, full of adoring multi-cultural friends who cheer her as she sings a song at the piano for her adoring …
A young French woman who calls herself "Freddie" travels to Seoul on a whim for the first time, saying she's just there for a couple weeks, you know, to see "everything". This comes as a surprise to s…
This plot has been tread and retread in countless feel-good sports comedies: A down on his luck jerk of a coach is matched with a ragtag group of underdog players. Then, to everyone's shock and fist-p…
I'm not sure what a great Whitney Houston movie would look like. Like so many before, she was an extremely talented and massively successful artist whose drug abuse ended up destroying her at too youn…
Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is a martial arts master, but he is tired and wants to live a quiet life. Deciding to give up his sword, Green Destiny, Li Mu Bai requests that his devoted friend Shu Lien (Mi…
Everyone loves a feel-good movie based on a true story... the more outlandish the pretense, the better. And now that we are in the post-holiday movie doldrums, what sounds better than a feel-good budd…
