Merrily We Roll Along is neither a stage show nor is it cinema, but damn it’s good. Filmed over three performances in June 2024, not long after the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth penned musical won four Tonys in the … Continue reading MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG
Zootopia 2 is not a movie for the children in the audience; it’s for the adults. I’m sure little ones will enjoy it—there’s plenty of bright colors, silly moments, and chaotic chases to grab a kid’s attention—but in a movie … Continue reading ZOOTOPIA 2
It was a toothpaste commercial that brought Phillip Vandarpleog (Brendan Fraser) to Japan. That was seven years ago, and he’s been a working, if not struggling, actor since. Fraser plays Phillip as a man stuck in second gear, his face … Continue reading RENTAL FAMILY
No filmmaker working today makes movies like Guillermo del Toro. His are gothic affairs, full of love and sympathy for all creatures great and small, doomed and saved. The color palettes, even when monochromatically muted, have a garish quality to … Continue reading FRANKENSTEIN
On the screen: a green, bucolic, treeless landscape. Welcome to the Scottish isle of Jura. On the soundtrack: the shallow, ragged breath of someone struggling for one more day. These are the dying wheezes of writer George Orwell, born Eric … Continue reading ORWELL: 2+2=5
It’s been 10 years since the Social-Democratic Revolution—“the most peaceful revolution the world has ever known”—but the women have been left behind. So opens Lizzie Borden’s 1983 Born in Flames, a rally cry committed to celluloid that’s bound to stir … Continue reading BORN IN FLAMES
The revolutionary enters the private chambers of the commanding officer. He is Captain Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn)—a magnificent name for a man who walks like the Terminator with a case of hemorrhoids. She is Perfidia Beverley Hills (Teyana Taylor), … Continue reading ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
Eleanor the Great is a movie in two parts, adjoined, perhaps haphazardly, by another delightful performance from June Squibb. Here, Squibb plays Eleanor, a cagey old coot who doesn’t suffer the lazy and self-centered subsequent generations gladly, doesn’t mince words … Continue reading ELEANOR THE GREAT
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is not for me. There’s part of me that wishes it was, and another part of me that’s glad it’s not. That’s not to say Journey is for no one. Watch this movie for 10 … Continue reading A BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY
Michael J. Cinema 
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