A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Matthew Pollock, “Adam Ruins Everything (Season 2, Episode 2: Adam Ruins Weight Loss)” (2017) A very timely episode in the second season of the educational comedy…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr, “Ten Canoes” (2006) An engrossing story of another story, “Ten Canoes” acts as both a morality tale and an ingenious…
French and French-language Films
Cedric Klapisch, “Back to Burgundy / Ce qui nous lie” (2017) An otherwise rather ho-hum family melodrama of sibling jealousies featuring some rather obvious narrative cliches…
Australian and New Zealand Films, Russian and Soviet Films
Pavel Serezhkin, “The Hooligans: Joining the Kremlin’s Football Army” (2018) Here’s a very funny mockumentary that pokes fun at Western (and in particular British) news media…
Rick Morales, “Batman vs. Two-Face” (2017) Adam West’s final outing as Batman before his death in June 2017 brings him face to face (or face to…
Rick Morales, “Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders” (2016) The series of Batman films by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher in the 1990s and by Christopher…
French and French-language Films
Luis Bunuel, “Diary of a Chambermaid” (1964) Of the Spanish director’s late-autumn career in which he directed classics like “Belle de Jour”, “The Discreet Charm of…
Oscar Rudolph, “Batman (Season 2, Episodes 51 / 52: A Piece of the Action / Batman’s Satisfaction)” (1967) Even for the lightweight situation comedy / family show…
British Films, French and French-language Films
Armando Iannucci, “The Death of Stalin” (2017) A British-made comedy satire about the death of Joseph Stalin and the struggle among his senior officials in the…
Paul Thomas Anderson, “Inherent Vice” (2014) Director Paul Thomas Anderson must be commended for daring to tackle a Thomas Pynchon novel and managing to be faithful…