The bouncy little screwball romance Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) is a fizzy cocktail of a movie set in depression-era London, where the beautiful people dance away in fabulous fashions and decadent distraction. Frances McDormand is the dowdy Guinevere Pettigrew, a buttoned-down yet free-thinking governess whose unorthodox ways have landed her on the […]
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the most elegant of Hollywood’s dance teams in the golden age of American musicals and Swing Time (1936) is the peak of their ten-film output. The plot is as absurd as anything from the era: Astaire is a dancer and gambler who is set to marry his hometown sweetheart […]
Billy Wilder was one of the great directors of classic American comedy. Avanti! (1972), based on the play by Samuel Taylor, is one of the director’s attempts to adapt his trademark mix of wit, romance, and sex to the more permissive era of the 1970s and one of the best films in the last act […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … “The White Lotus” (TV-MA), a new limited series comedy set at a luxury resort in Hawaii, uses discomforting humor in the collision of privileged characters and working class employees to navigate issues […]
Whip It (2009), the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore, is a grrrl power movie on wheels. Set in the funky DIY world of local roller derby leagues, it stars Elliot Page in their best role since Juno. Bliss Cavendar is neither as smart-ass nor as confident as the sardonic Juno MacGuff. This restless girl in […]
Married to the Mob (1988) – Two years after his breakthrough film Something Wild, Jonathan Demme returned to the genre with another mix of offbeat humor and dangerous criminals. This colorful gangster comedy stars Michelle Pfeiffer as the frustrated wife of mid-level mobster (a very young Alec Baldwin) and Matthew Modine as a dedicated and […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Scarlett Johansson reprises her role as Natasha Romanoff aka “Black Widow” (2021, PG-13) in the first solo film for the Marvel hero. Set between the “Civil War” and “Infinity War” films, it’s […]
“This is the story of our most excellent dads.” Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter bring those most excellent characters, Theodore “Ted” Logan and William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq., back to the screen in Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020). More than thirty years after Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the teenage best friends, wannabe […]
The midnight run of Martin Brest’s action comedy Midnight Run (1988) refers to what is supposed to be an easy job for skip tracer and bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro). He’s hired to capture Jack “Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a mild-mannered accountant who stole $15 million from the mob and then skipped out […]
To Rome with Love (2012) takes Woody Allen’s continental road show to Italy for a quartet of stories – really, more like extended skits – with an international cast. Jesse Eisenberg ignores advice from his older self (Alec Baldwin) when his relationship with Greta Gerwig is complicated by the emotionally ping-ponging Ellen Page in the […]
