Cinema Encounters

I’ve been off my blog for a year, and damn it I’m determined to remedy that. I am back. I know I am no Ebert, but this is fun and keeps my ...

Alejandro G. Inarritu’s “The Revenant” is grueling, beautiful, and blood-soaked ugly. It is the tale of survival and revenge with Leonardo ...

George Lucas couldn’t do it, stuck in the past obsessed on fixing the unbroken, telling already spoken tales. Now 23 years after “Return of...

I dug Emma Donoghue’s smash-hit book “Room,” The film, with a screenplay by Donoghue herself, is actually -– get this -– even better. Jack ...

“Spotlight” is a newsroom drama unlike anything since 1976’s “All the President’s Men,” and print journalists need an adrenaline shot of m...

Frank Sinatra is a seen-it-all NYC detective on the verge of seeing far more than he ever bargained for when he starts investigating the ca...

Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland (2015) is a fascinating throwback Disney fantasy, one that uses wide-eyed optimism and wonder as its badge, versus...