Reviews

You may have enjoyed Rudy Mancuso's YouTube and Awkward Puppets videos, but nothing prepares you for his breezy, endlessly playful and inventive feature film directing and co-writing debut.

The apparently autobiographical plot is a simple coming of age romantic comedy, but Mancuso peppers the film with rhythm, music, and delightful sight gags that tweak film conventions and keep the story tripping along in a seemingly effortless way.

Bonus points for terrific romantic chemistry between the two leads, pitch perfect pacing and casting across the board, wonderful use of color, and the feature film debut that Diego the puppet deserves!

This beautifully directed psychological thriller does not fit neatly into predefined genre boxes - which may frustrate some reviewers - but that may be its greatest strength.

The intensely committed performances, writing, and direction grab and hold the viewer's attention throughout the film's taut 90 minute running time - and its unsettling themes and images linger long after the film has ended.

Two days after watching Mother, May I?, I'm still wondering if it's a tale of ghostly possession, the imaginative reflection of damaged psyches, or a disturbing portrait of a toxic codependent relationship. It very well may be all three.

It takes a great deal of courage on the part of the filmmakers to let those questions hover around the viewer - in an industry which demands that all characters be relatable and all questions be ultimately answered.

Unlike Bridgerton which is energetic romantic comedy, this is straight drama that feels both constrained and bloated at the same time. There are moments of great poignance, especially in the young love story - and it soars when focusing on the mental struggles of the young King George.

Unfortunately those moments feel buried amid overlong, repetitive fantasy scenes about racially integrating the British monarchy and nobility, and the trials of young Lady Danbury.

This is a shame since a great love story based on a faithful depiction of real history could have been more powerful. The streaming mandate that no story can be told in less than six hours also gets in the way and tries the viewer's patience.

Although it's a female-empowerment show with solid performances all around, the true standouts are Corey Mylchreest in a star-making turn as the loving but tortured young King George, and Sam Clemmett as the Queen's loyal servant, whose every glance and moment demands as much attention as the king's ransom worth of elaborate costumes and wigs.

This film throws traditional screenplay structure out the window which at first makes one wait for major plot developments, but in the process it draws you into the lives of many different characters who are just trying to get by in their unsatisfying small town lives.

That in itself becomes compelling in its own compassionate, poetic way. The performances are all outstanding and one really feels for each of the leading and supporting characters as their stories unfold.

There's a sad kindness in the way the stories unfold, and the film becomes a broad portrait of gay life in small town Texas. If you take the film on its own terms, it blossoms in a way that you seldom see in most movies, gay or otherwise.

This is a moving portrait of how a very special woman overcame incredible odds and raised one of the most gifted writers and LGBT activists of our time.

In telling the story of the family and background that shaped him, Dustin Lance Black creates a portrait that is more vivid and moving than any work of fiction.

His journey from poverty and struggle in the most religiously conservative parts of the country, to the Oscar stage, to building bridges and understanding within the homophobic Mormon church, is much more than a tale of self-discovery and coming out.

The beautifully crafted documentary is infused with love. It celebrates the impact that a strong and loving woman can have on her children, and in this case, on the evolving attitudes of our society.

It's an intriguing concept that falls flat in execution from the first scene. Did they really think that a young audience wouldn't enjoy this if the dialogue wasn't peppered with "Ew" and "Whatever?"

While one might hope for some inventive wit (see "Shakespeare in Love"), it's mostly just flat and snarky. Despite the lovely period costumes, this might as well be set in a San Fernando Valley high school.

While Kaitlyn Dever is a talented actress, she comes off as a perpetually grumpy drip here, and she's hardly the kind of protagonist that the audience can root for.

There's not much comic or romantic energy to carry the story along, which is a shame. It's an opportunity missed.

"Benjamin" is a gem! This tale of a young filmmaker trying to get out of his own way to find his creative voice - and love - comes at you in its thoroughly unique, compassionate, and very funny way. Every moment and line is unexpected, yet all of the major moments happen without words.

Colin Morgan is wonderful in the title role. He is thoroughly believable as the insecure yet adorable oddball and you can't take your eyes off of him. Or help but care about him.

Phenix Brossard is quietly enchanting as the young musician who is the object of his affection, and the supporting cast are all endearing in a quirky yet totally real way.

The frustrating thing about these magical realism, Twilight Zone-ish tales, is that they start out intriguing, draw you in, and nearly every one of them ends with an anticlimactic thud.

They are all well-acted and handsomely produced, but speaking of The Twilight Zone, the ending of each of those was the best part!

If the stories these are based on didn't pay off at the end, then the clearly talented writers should have fixed that.

We all know that Neil Patrick Harris is a brilliant comic actor, song and dance man, and the best awards show host ever. Here we see what a great dramatic actor he is as well - with the humor coming from a deeply human place.

The strong ensemble cast (including the always perfect Marcia Gay Harden) play characters that are all multi-dimensional and real. Gay or straight, there is not a note of cliche or caricature among them - which in itself is a cause for celebration.

Yes, there are plenty of laughs. Yes, New York looks glossy and lovely. But everything is in the service of a story about real people dealing with real conflicts and the emotional complexity that goes along with them.

Bravo!

This is a funny, clever whodunnit with smart writing and an A-List ensemble of comic actors - but I had never heard of it - I am bombarded by trailers and promos for shows 24/7.

I don't know what the folks at Apple TV+ were thinking by slipping this ingenious gem under the promotional carpet.

It's a playful, smartly constructed mystery from The Lego Movie guys, with each episode being told from the point of view of a different suspect - each in a different movie genre style: romcom, action, thriller, musical, animation, and so on.

Everyone in the cast is at the top of their comic game, and they all seem to be having a great time. Now stop reading this and go watch it.

The musical play is a masterpiece, and it was the last of the golden age of Broadway musicals. I have a long history with the show, having seen it on Broadway as a kid (with Bette Midler as Tzeitel), performed in it in high school, and watched my daughter play Hodel in their junior high school production.

I've seen the film many times and on my latest rewatching, I was struck by Topol's magnificent performance and Norman Jewison's masterful direction. His staging of the musical numbers is naturalistic, cinematic and organic, and the entire film immerses us in this village, this time, this world.

The play's one big flaw is that all the fun stuff is in Act One and everything gets pretty dreary in Act Two. Instead of somehow repairing this in the film, Jewison leans into it, making the last hour even more glum and drawn out than it needs to be.

But the.timeless story, characters, script and music will live forever.

Because there is nothing remotely funny in the script or performances to suggest that this is a comedy - like the two previous versions were.

The only one who injects any humor into the flat proceedings is SNL's Chloe Fineman as the wedding planner. The others strain to add some levity into the humorless script, which just comes off as kinda sad.

This is a very smart, funny, warm, well-written and acted show with a terrific cast. I only found it on Hulu after discovering Cristela Alonzo's great stand up special.

The reason I'd never heard of it is because I'd stopped watching network shows a long time ago. Judging from the embarrassing trailer, it looks like ABC had no idea how to market it. All the more reason why the networks are dinosaurs heading for extinction.

Based on the credits of everyone involved, this should have been much better than it is. It feels like they had a great pitch meeting at Apple TV, everyone said, "It'll write itself!" and they all went home and cashed their checks.

The writing is both uninspired and lazy. There are lots of warmed over jokes about how filthy rich the lead character is, which have been done much better elsewhere.

The characters are all paper thin and derivative. Her gay assistant is shallow and bitchy. Groundbreaking. There's a major comic scene where she goes on a show and eats too-hot hot wings - which we have all seen Maya Rudolph do already on SNL. Lazy.

The only bright light is Nat Faxon as a timid accountant / love interest. The show springs to life whenever he's on camera. They seem to be moving towards some character development, but so far? Lazy.

Bette Davis is badly miscast as a frivolous coquette - who men are constantly throwing themselves at because she's such a radiant beauty. Even when she's married.

As a result, she gives an unusually artificial performance, with an annoyingly fake voice, and not a note of true human emotion. It feels like she's playing an actress playing a role - and not particularly well.

Claude Rains gives his typically strong and committed performance, but it's not enough to save this far-fetched melodrama.

Composer Franz Waxman is way off his game here as well, with startlingly intrusive music that insists on comedy when there is very little, and dramatic flourishes that insist on drama when there is none.

Because they all behave like they are. It feels like someone crossed the script of an ABC After School Special with a Disney Channel movie, changed the lead character to a gay man and slapped it up on the streamer just in time for Pride month.

This was a fun binge of a show that I missed the first time around. Smart, satirical romcom writing and winning performances by a strong ensemble cast make it worth a watch.

The pre-Schitt's Creek Noah Reid show off his first-rate comedy chops, and Matt Murray as his buff bff is especially endearing and amusing.

This is the sweetest, freshest, most genuinely heartfelt movie that I've seen in ages.

The script is thoroughly original, warm and witty, and the story unfolds without a false moment or even a whiff of predictably. The direction is sensitive and assured, and the leading man is endearingly winning.

It blows my mind that all of these are the work of the same person: the 25-year-old Cooper Raiff.

If you are reading this, Mr. Raiff, bravo and congratulations! Whoever funded this film needs to give him more money to make more films.

The film helped Wood evolve into a serious actress, and it's a nice debut for the very photogenic Beatty, but there's something flat about what should be a tangibly passionate film.

Despite the pedigree of director Elia Kazan and playwright-turned-screenwriter William Inge, this tale of suppressed teenage sexuality and mental breakdown is simultaneously overcooked and boring.

The plodding pace is baffling, and it even lacks the steamy gusto of lower brow potboilers like "Peyton Place" or "A Summer Place."

It may be tempting to blame the conservative era in which it was made, but Kazan had made the hyper passionate tale of sex and madness "A Streetcar Named Desire" ten years before!

For many years, queer film and television focused on tragedy: homophobia, the pain of coming out, unrequited love, and AIDS.

Now that all things queer have become widely normalized and ubiquitous, this reboot reaches back six years to exploit the true horror of the Pulse shooting - to Make Queer Tragic Again.

As in its previous versions, the self-obsessed characters still have the emotional and sexual maturity of 13-year-olds.

But the most galling scene shows them mocking a celebrity who exploits the fictional tragedy for media attention - in a show that exploits a real tragedy for media attention.

Having seen the thrilling stage musical a few times, and hearing what a disaster the film was, I've been avoiding it for a long time. I should have stuck with that.

There are so many ways that they botched the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning show, it's hard to know where to begin. Hiring the man who directed "Gandhi" to direct a big musical was clearly the biggest error.

The opening number, with dozens of auditioners dancing in slick unison, looks as though they've been rehearsing for months. This is especially baffling since "All That Jazz" and "Fame" had already captured the ragged, raw imperfection of aspiring dancers auditioning.

Dance numbers that seldom show the dancers' entire bodies (or "At the Ballet," where there's no dancing at all) prove that the director has no feel for staging musical numbers.

The music itself sounds like it's being played by a lounge band at an Airport Ramada Inn.

With the exception of Michael Douglas, Attenborough insisted on casting unknowns. They have remained so. They can all dance (except for Audrey Landers), but most of them can't really sing or act, and lack the charisma required to create an impression on film.

Don't get me started on the show-stopping songs that were replaced with inferior, mediocre tunes.

The only consolation is that Ryan Murphy (who knows from musicals) is planning to redo the show for TV. One hopes that his version will flush this unfortunate mess into a dim memory of botched movie musicals of the past.

Pfeiffer gives one of the best performances of her career as Betty Ford. Anderson gives the intelligent, detailed performance you'd expect from her as Eleanor Roosevelt, and she and Kiefer Sutherland both nail the Roosevelts' vocal musicality.

Sadly, Viola Davis is simply miscast as Michelle Obama, missing her breezy charm and charisma that so many other actresses could have captured. She attempts to make up for this by constantly pursing her lips and overdoing Obama's lumbering gait. It doesn't work.

Despite a strong supporting cast, Bayer lacks the comedic and acting chops to create a character to care about and root for. There's some fun shallow glam humor but the scripts are generally pretty blah.

The movie I wanted to see is the one with Gaga and Pacino and the dramatic energy they bring to their roles. Unfortunately Adam Driver's listless performance gives nothing back to his scene partners - in fact he seems like he wishes he were somewhere else.

Jared Leto's over the top performance feels like something from a Carol Burnett Show sketch.

At the very least one could hope for some glossy glamour, but Ridley Scott shoots nearly every under-lit scene with a gray filter - with little to no dramatic tension.

After watching two episodes, it's clear that the guys are having fun letting loose with the scumbaggery of these men (especially Sean Penn as John Mitchell).

But in an attempt to make the women more self-possessed victims, Roberts underplays the very colorful Martha Mitchell (with a half-hearted Southern accent), and Mo Dean is played as strong and smart (while she actually spoke with a little girl voice and was quite dim).

There is very little dramatic tension and no consistent point of view. Episode one is from John Dean's point of view and episode two is mostly from the point of view of the Watergate burglars, with Martha Mitchell (the hero? The star?) playing a supporting role on the periphery.

These things leave the viewer's mind to wander onto questions like: why the hell isn't Dan Stevens wearing John Dean's ubiquitous glasses?