Author Archive
Film Review – The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
The LEGO Movie (2014) came as a kind of revelation. Here was a film that was – in essence – a feature length commercial for the LEGO building blocks toys. Yet under the guidance of the writing/directing team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, we…
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Film Review – Miss Bala
Miss Bala (2019) does something that few films manage to accomplish: set out with a specific goal in mind and end up doing the exact opposite. My assumption is that director Catherine Hardwicke and writer Garth Dunnet-Alcocer – remaking the Spanish language film of the…
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Film Review – Glass
M. Night Shyamalan is a filmmaker who exists in two different extremes. On one hand, he can set up interesting premises that draw us in with their mysterious, suspenseful, and horrific elements. On the other, the payoffs to these stories have been hit or miss…
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Film Review – The Upside
Two people from different worlds. One is black from the inner city, trying to make ends meet so he can support his family. The other is white, wealthy, and who suffers from a physical ailment that not only restricts his body but torments his soul.…
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Top 15 Films of 2018 – Allen’s Picks
The beauty of cinema is how it works as a reflection of our society – our hopes, our fears, and our desires. Films are a timestamp of who were, who we are, and what we could possibly be. A thousand years from now, people can…
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Film Review – Escape Room
Escape rooms are a lot of fun. You and your friends are placed inside of a room – usually decorated with a specific theme – and try to solve a number of puzzles or retrieve a key that will eventually help you to “escape” within…
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Film Review – If Beale Street Could Talk
What writer/director Barry Jenkins has proven – both in his Oscar winning Moonlight (2016) and now with If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) – is his ability to take deep, humanistic emotions and play it out in lyrical fashion. Seeing his visuals unfold is like…
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Film Review – On the Basis of Sex
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lived an exceptional life. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York (as Joan Ruth Bader), Ginsburg studied at Cornell, attended Harvard, and earned her law degree at Columbia. She spent much of her career focused on gender equality and women’s…
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