**_Tom Hanks & neighbors vs. the new weirdo family on the block_**
Shot in the summer of 1988, this capitalized on Tom Hanks’ popularity after hits like “Splash” and “Big.” He was in his youthful prime and people flocked to the theaters.
It’s a fun flick about any average neighborhood in America, dealing with quirky neighbors and the adult males acting like kids. A new family has moved into the local rundown house, but they’re strangely aloof and “only come out at night.” The likable cast includes stalwarts Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal and…
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This is a disappointingly rudderless affair that contrives to marry the seductive with the potent but that only really comes out with more of a milk pudding. “Danny” (Daniel Armando) is unhappily married to “Esme” (Dee Herlihy) who is having a fairly obvious fling with “Jack” (Melissa Navia) all whilst his brother “Eddie” (Edgar Muniz) ambles around adding more sexual ambiguity to this beachside melodrama. It’s presented in a pseudo-documentary style that tantalises, at best, with the peccadilloes and predicaments of it’s characters but it makes little effort to develop them beyond the superfi…
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This is a journey film—both internal and external—set across Albania, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Greece. The story follows a director on a quest to find the lost film by the Manakis brothers, purported to be Greece's first motion picture. However, his search leads him not to a cinematic treasure, but to the slow death agony of the Balkans themselves. His journey culminates not in discovery, but in depression, pain, and a profound sense of defeat—a feeling powerfully symbolized by the recurring image of a fragmented statue of Lenin.…
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Remember Ted Neeley in the 1973 film adaptation of the “Jesus Christ Supertar” musical theatre extravaganza? It was his eyes that were striking, and those are the features that work best for Robert Powell in this version of the story of Christ. Starting with the nativity, and featuring quite a formidable cast of actors depicting those crucial to the tale, Franco Zeffirelli uses convincing (North African) locations, some meticulous production design and sticks fairly faithfully - if broadly - to the biblical chronology to regale us with a story that Powell holds together skilfully - even if he …
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There’s more than a little of the spirit of the Oliver Reed et al adventures (1973) to this adaptation of the intrigues at the court of King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox). This time, it’s Logan Lerman’s “D’Artagnan” who arrives in Paris and swiftly encounters three strangers with whom he has to duel. There’s “Athos” (Matthew Macfadyen), “Porthos” (Ray Stevenson) and “Aramis” (Luke Evans) and all are eager to teach this young upstart a lesson. Luckily, they are diverted by the guards of the Cardinal Prime Minister Richieleu (Christophe Waltz) under the command of the menacingly eye-patched “Rochefor…
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Right from the outset, this doesn’t hang about as a near perfectly executed crypto robbery is carried out by a gang of young men in Macau. Despite mobilising the police and the several thousand cameras located across the city, the cops are short on clues so they draft in retired “Wong” (Jackie Chan) whose meticulous approach to his work soon leads them to suspect that the legendary “Shadow” is masterminding a group of ninja-esque men who are masters of disguise, martial arts and technology. He decides that the only way to track this man down is to recruit a squad of officers that don’t look re…
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FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://fandomwire.com/father-mother-sister-brother-review/
"Father Mother Sister Brother aims to be a discreet triptych about modern isolation and family bonds, but its rigid structure and aversion to conflict transform it into an exercise in style that empties itself of true content.
Purposely monotonous, slow, and repetitive, Jim Jarmusch promises contemplative silence that, unfortunately, becomes a practically null experience, proving that minimalism, when stripped of an emotional or thematic backbone, is merely inertia.
A complete letdown."
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FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://fandomwire.com/jay-kelly-review/
"Jay Kelly is a dense and unforgettable drama from Noah Baumbach, where George Clooney's inspired performance reaches a peak of vulnerability, giving life to a man trapped between professional success and personal emptiness.
It's a thematically rich story about the tyranny of memory and the high cost of ambition, questioning whether success compensates for lost bonds. With directing, editing, cinematography, and score that transform dialogue into pure intimacy and organically link the past and present, the film i…
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“Miguel” (Omar Banana) knows how to strut his stuff, Donna Summer style, but his mother “Reme” (Ana Wagener) isn’t quite clued into the ramifications of his hip swaying and flamboyance until an altercation at a wedding brings her face to face with an an uncomfortable truth in 1970s Spain. She’s terrified he will find himself in trouble and she isn’t far wrong after he leaves home and moves in with some protesting theatrical types who are determined to see the laws that support the oppression of the gay community struck down now that the era of fascism has officially ended. He has some talent d…
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George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1050), author of such legendary novels as the allegorical Animal Farm and dystopian 1984, has been called one of the greatest and most insightful writers of the 20th Century. And, in light of recent history, he’s also been widely regarded as one of the most prescient, a plainspoken scribe who clearly saw the future long before it happened and wasn’t afraid to straightforwardly call it for what it would become. In recognition of that legacy, Orwell’s life, work and outlooks are now the subject of this latest production from prolific activist documenta…
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