In a death row cell in a California prison sits Jane Arcs (Eli Jane). After thirteen years here the day has arrived for her to be put to death by lethal injection. She calmly recalls the events that brought her to this point. Her peaceful acceptance is in marked contrast to her earlier life as an underground street fighter nicknamed “Kill Shot.”
Doesn’t anyone want to laugh anymore? I know it can’t be just me who yearns for the experience of sitting with a group of people I don’t know and sharing an evening of chuckles, chortles, snickers, titters, giggles and the occasional big fat belly laugh. But of all the ways that Hollywood has let us down in the 21st century, this has to be the biggest: where are all the comedies? Look at the movie listings and there are words you’ll see over and over again: horror, suspense, thriller, action, adventure, sci-fi, once in awhile drama or documentary.
A moving performance from Rob Morgan is the best reason to watch this inspirational drama that otherwise fails to deliver the punch it spends nearly two hours winding up for.
America’s long-cherished status as a cultural melting pot is at the center of Tango Shalom, a likeable comedy whose message about religious tolerance more than makes up for its occasional failings.
Jos Laniado stars as Moshe Yehuda, a Hasidic Rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The school where he teaches is on the verge of closing unless he can come up with a big cash infusion.
Sean Kenealy and Eric Silvera are not the first (and likely not the last) aspiring filmmakers who faced the question, How can we make our first movie with no money? That question is usually answered by taking a dialogue heavy script and shooting it with whatever resources are at hand.
Yes, The Public is coming back.
New. Different. Soon to be here.
Stay tuned for more info.
Movie theaters may or may not be on a fast track to extinction, a possibility I never thought I would face in my lifetime. But movies are far from dead, and like those plants that force their way through the asphalt in your driveway, they will find a way to be seen.
Cheerfully old-fashioned, Love & Debt is a dramedy about an economically stressed family whose gentle tone signals from the outset that it does not plan to send the viewer through an emotional wringer. What it lacks in hard-hitting drama it makes up for in geniality.
The title of Spencer McCall’s new documentary may catch the eyes of some potential viewers curious to learn what it means. It might also drive away those who need a more direct hook when scanning a list of movies to stream. As such it bespeaks a hesitance to give away the full contours of McCall’s story that makes viewing the film an often frustrating experience.
The Third Strike is a good documentary about a great subject, the perversion of federal mandatory sentencing laws, commonly known as “three strikes.” Instituted to keep the worst of the worst off the streets, they were intended to apply to criminals who had been convicted of three crimes, at least two of which were “serious violent felon[ies].” Over the decades they have been used to give life sentences to offend
John “Rus” Thompson, who pled guilty in 2017 to a misdemeanor arising out of voter fraud and lying under oath, is ordering up a steaming heap of attention this week. He and a few other guys in Oakleys will be driving their pickups counterclockwise in downtown Buffalo to protest the state’s emergency orders related to Covid-19.
British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb (you may know them as Mark and Jez from Peep Show), had a sketch show a decade or so ago, which in its later seasons included a sketch about a post-apocalypic game show, “The Quiz Broadcast,” held in a sort of bunker.
Most of us first heard the term “human capital” in discussions of financial settlements made to the families of those killed in the 9-11 attacks. It’s a bland term for a painful calculation, the monetary value of a life. The family of a victim who had high earning expectations would receive more from insurance companies than the family of, say, a janitor. It’s a controversial subject because it attempts to quantify something unquantifiable, and because it forces us to admit that, in the supposedly classless United States, some lives are “worth” more than others.
Anyone hoping that love gets gentler, surer and sweeter with age is in for a rude awakening with Love Is Not Love, actor/director Stephen Keep Mills’ impressionistic meditation on the struggle between fantasy and reality in a man’s romantic life.
Several minutes of cats frolicking playfully on a semi-rural island are followed by an old man happily waking to find his pet cat Tama sleeping on his chest. Any canine chauvinist who may accidentally have wandered into the theater is put on immediate notice that The Island of Cats is unlikely to be the movie for them. Feline fanciers, on the other hand, can settle back for 100+ minutes of a story that will do little to distract them from contemplating the rewards of cat companionship.
WBEN says it is “partnering” (whatever that means) with legitimate news outlets WIVB and WROC to host a debate in the race for the 27th Congressional District between Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs.