I used to be a very heavy reader, but of late, I’ve slowed down a bit. True, much of it comes from reading trade paperbacks more than novels, but then there’s my job, the podcast (which I really need to schedule again soon), and then this blog. That all takes Read more…
The Oscar nominations came out yesterday. And, quite frankly, I don’t much care who wins. The Academy Awards are, like many entertainment awards, little more than the industry patting itself on the back. It’s generally good for winning a trivia contest and that’s about it. But I do write a Read more…
I noticed that trailers for both Just Mercy and Dark Waters came out around the same time. That makes sense since both are obviously aimed for awards season as prestige releases. Both are also legal dramas based on true stories of crusading lawyers working to right wrongs through legal actions Read more…
Trailers are, by definition, designed to get your butt into a theater to see a movie. They’re commercials. That’s all they are. I know this, but I am hardly immune to a good one, especially if it’s something that is more or less in my wheelhouse anyway. My point is, Read more…
Some days, it’s rather cool to have Turner Classic Movies as part of my Hulu subscription because then I can check out older movies like, say, 1934’s The Thin Man. The Thin Man, based off a mystery novel by Dashiell Hammett, gave the world Nick and Nora Charles, an urbane Read more…
British TV producers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss gave the world a revamped Doctor Who and the modern version of Sherlock. Given their pedigree, what could they take on next? How about Bram Stoker’s Transylvanian count? Well, that’s what we got with a modernized mini-series Dracula, now available on Netflix Read more…
This is a bad time of year to hit the local multiplex at least once a week. January means all the stuff the studios didn’t think was remotely good comes out as it’s all they have left after releasing the good stuff for possible awards consideration. True, a number of Read more…
I don’t, for whatever reason, watch too many Netflix original movies. I find watching movies at home sometimes distracting, so I want something I am really going to want to focus on. But something about Dolemite Is My Name did catch my attention. I won’t claim to be the biggest Read more…
Netflix has some real treats in its vast catalog if you know where to look. Since I’ve been trying to expand my general cinematic knowledge, I opted for a Chinese martial arts film that was also a biographical movie based on a real man. That would be the 2008 Ip Read more…
I read this book once, whose name I cannot remember, that was a biography of Denys Finch Hatton, the aristocratic English big game hunter best known for being the lover of Karen Blixen. Blixen, a Danish woman who married a Swedish baron, had some fame as a writer under various Read more…