The Prom starts with a bad review. Well, technically, Ryan Murphy‘s bells-and-whistles (and-klaxons-and-sirens-and-fire-alarms-and-jackhammers) adaptation of the 2016 musical that ended up on Broadway in 2018 kicks off with an inciting act of intolerance: Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman), a senior at James Madison High School in Edgewater, Indiana, wants to …
Read More »'The Craft: Legacy' Review: The Spell Remains the Same
If you’re a certain type of moviegoer of a certain age, you definitely remember The Craft, the 1996 tale of a teen coven who turn the tables on the high school d-bags who torment them. For a lot of (mostly but not exclusively) young women who caught this cult horror …
Read More »'Amulet' Review: A Necklace, a Soldier, a Horror-Movie Nightmare
You will come across any number of creatively creepy elements in writer-director Romola Garai’s toedip into atmospheric horror. For starters, there’s a deep, dark forest, the kind of fairy tale setting that houses woodsmen, witches and big, bad wolves. That’s where Tomaz (Alec Secareanu, the handsome Romanian from God’s Own …
Read More »'Babyteeth' Review: Love, Death and Something to Chew On
“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” You wouldn’t expect that quote from Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who died in 1910, to apply to a hip family living in Australia in the here and now. But Tolstoy knew his stuff. And in …
Read More »'Leto' Review: Russian Rockers Rage Against the '80s Machine
Leningrad, the early 1980s: the Soviet Union’s stranglehold on its citizens continues, glasnost is not even a glimmer in Gorbachev’s eye and it feels as if the Party will never end. The one thing that does seem to be thriving, however, is the city’s underground rock scene, albeit one with …
Read More »'Her Smell' Review: Diary of a Mad '90s Alt-Rock Burnout
Fame knocks the hell out of Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss in a five-alarm fire blaze), a ’90’s indie punk rocker who leads a riot grrrl band that she bombards with near-constant verbal abuse. Those backstage tantrums can do damage to anyone who gets too close. Narcotics or narcissism? Pick your …
Read More »'Dragged Across Concrete' Review: Pulp Crime Drama, Straight No Chaser
Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) is a cop. He’s been on the force for a while, long enough to see an old partner (Don Johnson) get a fancy desk job and help get a new partner, Anthony (Vince Vaughn), busted for excessive force. The two of them were filmed interrogating a …
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