Most movies are a window you gaze through for two or so voyeuristic hours. Others are a door you walk through. Jewel Robbery, a 1932 pre-Code comedy, is like falling into a glass of champagne. The black and white photography by … Continue reading All Together Now: Dispatches from the 13th TCM Classic Film Festival
There’s a lot about The Northman that is ancient and just as much that’s mythic. It’s Shakespearean in its bones, but touches of Confucius, Sophocles and Wolfram von Eschenbach are never far from reach. There’s even a surprising tribute to Disney’s The Lion … Continue reading THE NORTHMAN
For the first time since COVID sank its spikey teeth into gatherings great and small, the TCM Classic Film Festival returns to Hollywood Boulevard for four days of essentials, discoveries, and anniversary screenings. The governing theme this year is, fittingly, … Continue reading All Together Now: Back to the Big Screen
There’s no such thing as an American anymore. No Hispanics, no Japanese, no Blacks, no whites, no nothing. It’s just rich people and poor people.” That’s the line David (a slick and oily Jeff Goldblum) feeds drug kingpin Hector (René … Continue reading DEEP COVER
A master among masters, the filmography of Martin Scorsese is nothing to sneeze at. Raging Bull, GoodFellas, The Irishman—you know the lineup. But what sometimes gets overlooked are the documentaries, a dozen of them, personal and nuanced works that play like B-sides … Continue reading THE LAST WALTZ
Deep Water is a preposterous movie. Particularly the ending, which crosscuts one character chasing after another through the woods and the young daughter of one of those characters throwing a suitcase into the backyard pool. Why, you ask? Well, to answer … Continue reading DEEP WATER
Istanbul’s Cerrahpasa Hospital, a state-run teaching hospital in Turkey, is as close to director Deniz Tortum’s heart as you can get. He was born here. And here, his father worked as a doctor. And here, many lives came to an … Continue reading PHASES OF MATTER (MADDENIN HALLERI)
A young girl spies her mother in bed with a man who is neither her father nor the woman’s husband. The young girl is Flora (Anna Paquin), the speaking child of her mute mother, Ada (Holly Hunter). Both were bought and … Continue reading THE PIANO
Not even the pandemic could upset the Boulder International Film Festival. Back in 2020, BIFF was one of the last times local moviegoers had a chance to get together before locking down one week later. In 2021, festival directors Kathy … Continue reading Unmasked and Fancy-Free: Previewing the 2022 Boulder International Film Festival
Michael J. Cinema 
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