Little Italy: Dreadful, Awful Really Bad Rom-Com Benefits None (Except Maybe Pusateri’s)
The Happytime Murders: When bad puppet sex is worse than no puppet sex at all
ReviewJim SlotekR-rated puppetry, The Jim Henson Company, Henson Alternative, Brian Henson, Melissa McCarthy, Improv comedy, Elizabeth Banks, Todd Berger, Patrick Bristow, Puppet sex
Nico, 1988: Portrait of Warhol Muse’s Final Days Suitably, Germanically Grim
A boy and his best paleo-pal: Alpha is that 'something different' you've been asking for
ReviewJim SlotekAlpha, Albert Hughes, The Hughes Brothers, Domestication of dogs, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Salutrean hypothesis, Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt, The Lion King, The Ice Age, Cro Magnon man
Mile 22: Where Bare-Knuckled Action Meets Profound Literary Quotations?
Never Saw It Coming: Comedy Noir Shoots High, Lands Kinda Sorta Nowhere
Skate Kitchen: An actual crew of young women boarders becomes less real as fiction
ReviewJim SlotekSkate Kitchen, Skateboarding, Female skateboarders, Youth Culture, Crystal Moselle, Jaden Smith, Dede Lovelace, Nina Moran, Docudrama, Documentaries, The Wolfpack
The Last Suit: One stellar performance in a tale of chasing ancient Holocaust memories halfway around the world
Crazy Rich Asians: Engaging(ish) Story, Strong Cast Buried by Garish Materialism
Its empowerment story aside, characters in Puzzle are hard to figure out
By Karen Gordon
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Spike Lee's reality-based BlacKkKlansman: campy, preachy and entertaining
ReviewJim SlotekSpike Lee, Ku Klux Klan, Cannes Grand Prix, John David Washington, Ron Stallworth, David Duke, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Adam Driver, Paul Walter Hauser, The Black Klansman, Richard Gilden
The Meg: A toothless 'Jurassic Jaws' not even bad enough to be good
ReviewJim SlotekMonster movies, Shark movies, Megalodon, Jaws, Jason Statham, Rainn Wilson, Jon Turteltaub, National Treasure, Cliff Curtis, Chinese produced Hollywood movies, Masi Oka
Cielo: The desert sky as backdrop makes for a profound contemplative experience
ReviewJim SlotekDocumentary, The night sky, Chile, Atacama Desert, Light pollution, Planet hunting, Stars, Galaxies, Star-gazing, Alison McAlpine
Dog Days: Adorable pooch performances overshadowed by 'meh' human rom-com
ReviewJim SlotekVanessa Hudgens, Ken Marino, Eva Longoria, Nina Dobrev, Adam Pally, Tone Bell, Garry Marshall, Romantic comedy, Anthologies, Family films
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood: Bisexual secrets of everyone from Tracy & Hepburn to the Duke & Duchess
ReviewJim SlotekScotty Bowers, Secret Hollywood sex lives, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Matt Tyrnauer, Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Stephen Fry, Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Documentaries
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda is a joyous ode to sound and a soundtrack-guru's life
ReviewJim SlotekRyuichi Sakamoto, Stephen Nomura Schible, Fukushima disaster, Cancer, documentaries, Sofia Coppola, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Bowie, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Revenant, Alejandro G Inarritu
Oh Bother!: Disney's Christopher Robin in limbo between dewy-eyed innocence-lost and wannabe family fare
ReviewJim SlotekTags Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, A.A. Milne, Jim Cummings, Paul Winchell, Tigger, Disney, Ewan McGregor, Revisiting childhood, Hundred Acre Wood, Marc Forster
Spy Who Dumped Me: 'Best friends' action comedy is really an out-of-control one-woman show
ReviewJim SlotekMila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, Spy comedies, female action comedies, Justin Theroux, Susanna Fogel, Gillian Anderson, Saturday Night Live, CIA, Jason Bourne
The Darkest Minds sets the bar on dystopian teenager-killing movies even lower
ReviewJim SlotekYoung adult novels, The Darkest Minds, Divergent, The Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Super powers, Dystopian stories, Dystopian fiction, Bradley Whitford, Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Searching: Ace Thriller Asks Timely Questions about Digital-Age Identity, Privacy
