The Old Man series (FX network, streaming on Hulu) has Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, Alia Shawkat and Amy Brenneman in a scaldingly convoluted espionage thriller that speaks of, if not to, the Byzantine geopolitical warfare […]
It was gratifying, but not entirely surprising, to discover—somewhat belatedly—that 1883, the 10-episode “prequel” to the Yellowstone series, is a richly engaging movie experience. Its 10 one-hour-long episodes follow the travails of a westward-bound wagon […]
Over the last couple of months, the film I’ve found most deeply appealing is Navalny, the richly engaging documentary about the high-profile Russian dissident who barely survived an apparent state-sponsored poisoning and, after an extended […]
A few days ago, I went to the movies—in a theater. First time in more than two years, and it was also a special occasion in that it involved seeing Memoria, a new film by […]
I’m OK with CODA getting the Best Picture Oscar even though I think The Power of the Dog, Drive My Car and Licorice Pizza are the best of the nominated films. After all, Oscar does […]
Notes from my “stream-and-dream” ledger for the past month: When the home-made sex video of a schoolteacher (Katia Parscariu) gets exposed on the Internet, tabloid scandal and cultural controversy erupt. The scandal-mongering spills over into […]
Once again, the first weeks of the new year are yielding up a good many films that, if streamed just a little bit sooner, might have been included in my musings on last year’s best […]
When the global pandemic arrived in Chico, Pageant Theatre owner Miles Montalbano figured it would pass by quickly. He and his 2020 crew were looking forward to celebrating the Pageant’s 40th anniversary in March. “We […]
Okay, first things first. An abundance of good stuff found its way into the Stream & Dream screening room during 2021. And the best of it, as of the penultimate week of December, looks like […]
With the streaming season stretching on, here are some of the most recent film highlights. Passing (Netflix) A deft and at times brilliant adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, Passing is remarkable in that respect […]
Stray, a ruggedly poetic documentary about stray dogs in Istanbul, has some extraordinary moments of eerie emotion in it, including one near the finish that’s as haunting and amazing as anything I’ve encountered in movies […]
In the film Cry Macho, nonagenarian Clint Eastwood (who directs as well) plays a septuagenarian, a worn-out old cowboy who’s sent to retrieve his benefactor’s estranged (and apparently abused) adolescent son from the clutches of […]
In A Life for a Kiss, a 13-minute western made in 1912, a lone bandit with a posse on his trail takes a brief detour to get a drink of water at a small tree-shaded […]
I’ve been enjoying the peculiar freedoms of “streaming in place,” but I’ve also been finding that, as a movie reviewer, the paths I’ve been following seem increasingly personal and idiosyncratic. Without the regimen of weekly […]
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