Langston Hughes wrote, “What happens to a dream deferred / Does it dry up / Like a raisin in the sun / Or fester like a sore— / And then run?” The American dream came under fire last year by those who felt theirs had been deferred for too long. Hollywood was born on being the “dream...

Donald Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was the greatest ever appearance by a president, fictional or otherwise, by any actor in the history of cinema. Everyone agrees. I had a whole bunch of people look in to it and they all said Trump was the best, he has terrific ability and...

Day 3: Saturday, Jan. 21 As you probably heard (unless Fox News is your only source of information), there were numerous large protest marches throughout the world today, as people took to the streets to register their dissatisfaction with the latest Underworld movie. No, I kid, it was about...

Listen! Do you smell that? It's the Sundance Film Festival, back for another year of showcasing new independent films and terrorizing the helpless town of Park City, Utah. The mood is slightly muted this year, partly because there wasn't much pre-festival buzz about any of the films, partly...

Perhaps, during the past 14 years, you’ve pondered what might have become of Xander Cage, the thick-necked, skateboarding slab played by Vin Diesel in 2002’s fun-but-dumb action flick xXx. If so, you’re in luck! A sequel has now arrived, for no earthly reason whatsoever, to answer that...

The concert film is a subgenre in a state of continuous, radical change, mainly because of the music it strives to capture. Merely documenting a great stage-show or a searing lead performance can be accomplished by recording the set with a phone, but the energy locked into the time and place of...

We live in weird times. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you probably agree that the world has seen better days. Some people find a silver lining in the fact that great art is often born in the wake of perilous times — take the paranoid thrillers that followed Watergate, for example...

Here are two pairs of contrasting visions: CONTRAST 1: The dark amniotic encasement of a movie theater, surrounded by fellow cinematic worshipers, the screen ignited with vivid color and soaring music, ushering us into an artist's salutary vision — versus sitting at home in front of a...

Since he burst onto the independent film scene in 1994 with Clerks, profanity-prone writer/director Kevin Smith has more or less stayed on brand. With few exceptions, his films revolve around verbose slackers in varied states of arrested development – almost literally in the case of his debut’s...

Patriots Day tries to give audiences great value: three movies for the price of one. It starts by telling the personal stories of people affected by the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings: victims, police, folks suddenly entangled in the criminals’ escape. The bombing itself briefly drives the movie...

In October 2013, I lost my battle with a liver disease known as PSC, primary sclerosing cholangitis. It causes the bile ducts to swell up, and sometimes swell shut, which turns the body into a giant clogged toilet. When that happens, your skin turns yellow and your eyes do a great impression of...

Martin Scorsese works with two of his favorite themes in Silence -- Catholicism and violence -- but not in the way he's done in the past. Slowly paced and, yes, often quiet, Scorsese's adaptation of Shusaku Endo's acclaimed 1966 novel has the contemplative mood of a Terrence Malick film, or one of...

Product placement has been around for a long time. Like, super-long. We tend to think of it in terms of movies and TV shows, but the truth is, the concept was in use well before the Lumière brothers were born. Perhaps the first notable use of product placement was in Jules Verne’s classic novel,...

A few days ago, a picture from Will Smith’s upcoming film Bright surfaced. Smith is on set, smiling with a cop’s handlebar mustache and uniform with a medal draped over his chest. Next to him is a similarly-dressed being with mottled green-yellow skin and inhuman features. Yes, Smith’s new...

The young people would tell me I had all the feels in 2016. Actually, way too many my age would say the same. I know I brought plenty of emotional baggage to the theater in 2016, and in return, this past year of cinema made me tear up, quiver, tremble, and blubber like a baby. I blame Amy Adams,...