In Theaters. It’s Merry Christmas at the movies week and to prove it we are on the receiving end of no less than seven new movies — five mainstream and two art titles. Six of them open on Friday, and one on Wednesday. Move over Star Wars. Owing to the time of year, I’ve also […]

Once again the floodgates have opened and we are deluged with movies — three mainstream and two art titles. Of course, one of those mainstreamers is one of the year’s biggest Next Big Things: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2. This is one those movies that you “have” to see or suffer a violent loss of pop culture social status.

One of the surest signs of the New Year is that there is some almost certainly mediocre-to-dire horror picture straining at the gate to be the first movie of the year. This year is no different, and apart from the 2015 stragglers, it doesn’t seem likely to get better any time soon.

In Theaters. It’s the week before Christmas — and an onslaught of prestige pictures — but this week belongs to what is surely the most eagerly awaited movie of the year — maybe of several years. It’s the Next Big Thing that puts every other Next Big Thing to shame. It’s so big, in fact, […]

Yes, it’s another over-stuffed week at the movies. The notable difference is that a lot of it is easier to dismiss out of hand. Of the six movies opening this week, I’d call four of them marginal at best. That, of course, is subjective and has no relation to whether or not they will make money.

In Theaters. Another light week — one mainstream title and one art title. Come to think of it that’s a step up from last week. But all this is, of course, merely filler — marking time till next week when the movie the entire world is waiting for comes to town. I refer, of course, […]

In Theaters. It’s the week of Bond 24 — or Spectre, if you will — and no one can be happier than Hollywood after last week’s debacle at the box office. And if you have kids, or are nostalgic for your childhood, there’s an alternative Big Deal out there, though by the age of eight, […]

In Theaters. Talk about the winter of our discontent — this is it. We get one low-interest mainstream offering, one special interest title and zero art titles. If we were still using that term “bad scene,” I’d say this is certainly one. The upside is that it offers a chance to catch up with Trumbo, […]

In Theaters. This week we get three new mainstream titles and two art titles — and though I’ve seen none of the mainstream ones, I’ll say that the art titles are the things to watch, because I have seen those and they are among the best films of the year. No fooling. It’s one of […]

In Theaters. Next week is when the new James Bond picture comes out, and that means the studios have — for all intents and purposes — come up with some floor sweepings for us. No one expects this week’s three mainstream titles to make a nickel, so no one much minds sacrificing them to the […]

In Theaters. To judge by this week’s mainstream releases, it would be easy to conclude that we are somehow being punished for our sins — real or imagined or maybe even sins not yet committed. The truth, of course, is that the SPECTRE juggernaut is still with us. Worse, the final — really, no foolin’ […]

I recently received a royalty check on my book Charlie Chan at the Movies and realized that the start date on that project is now 30 years old. The book itself has only been out 26 years. It took a long time to write a book in those days when research materials were scarce and […]