If Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were the two stars of “Siskel & Ebert at the Movies,” the intimate movie theater set on which they shared their takes on film releases new and old was the third. You can thank set designer Mickey Loewenstein for that, a legendary scenic designer at Chicago’s WTTW-Channel 11 for […]

The name “Zack Snyder” evokes a range of emotions, depending on the person: boredom, excitement, dashed hopes, bewilderment. Many of those emotions apply to his latest project, an animated adaptation of Norse mythology that, for reasons I still can’t determine, ends in part with a sequence in which Jesus Christ himself flies off the cross […]

For movies and TV shows set in our modern era, who are the best (or should I say worst?) real-life villains? The ones everyone agrees are terrible and can easily root against? From where I’m watching, the Sackler family, their enablers, and their competitors are making a run for it. The profiteers of the opioid […]

Set in 1964 and 1965, “The Featherweight” is a stylistically daring movie about an aging real-life boxer, Willie Pep (James Madio), who held the World Featherweight championship twice between 1942 and 1950 and invites a couple of documentary filmmakers modeled on the Maysles brothers to record his daily life as he attempts a comeback in […]

Larry Karaszewski remembers it like it was yesterday. He and his writing partner, Scott Alexander, were having lunch in the commissary at Universal Studios, which had produced their scripts from “Problem Child” and its sequel. “We were being really typecast as people who write these junky kids’ movies,” Karaszewski recalls. “We actually took a meeting […]

A year ago, I wrote about the real challenges the Toronto International Film Festival has faced in trying to reclaim its spot at the top of the fall festival events. With the ascendance of both Venice and Telluride over the last decade, as well as the one-two punch of the COVID lockdown and the WGA/SAG strikes that […]

The revelation that purple-suited witch Agatha Harkness was the secret antagonist of “WandaVision” was a pleasantly surprising twist for the flawed yet entertaining Disney+ miniseries. Her long-awaited spin-off series, “Agatha All Along,” is a testament to Kathryn Hahn’s skills. Still, ultimately, it’s another Marvel TV show that fails to cast a bewitching spell, let alone […]

One year into the new decade, the movie prospects keep getting better. The releases slated for 2021 are so exciting they’ll make you salivate with anticipation, and we can’t wait to see them – especially now that it looks like we can see them. For starters we’ll be getting another Asian Blockbuster in director Destin […]

(Photo by Macall Polay/©Warner Bros.) Rotten Tomatoes is collecting every new Certified Fresh movie into one list, creating our guide to the best movies of 2021. Among them you’ll find Blockbusters (Shang-Chi), documentaries (Lily Topples the World), awards contenders (The Green Knight), the cutting-edge in horror (The Night House). Movies achieve Certified Fresh status by […]