By John H. Foote (***1/2) Now in Theatres WOW!!! Any fears that Top Gun: Maverick will feel like a very expensive video game can be cast aside. The film is a huge entertainment machine where everyone involved is firing on all cylinders. For two years, this film was delayed due to COVID, but Top Gun:…
By John H. Foote (BOMB) In theatres Destined to be nominated for several Razzies at the end of the year as the year’s worst, Firestarter did not as much as spark my interest. Is there an unwritten law somewhere that states every bad movie from the eighties must be remade? Bad enough we had Footloose…
By John H. Foote (****) In theatres The greatest group of actors to emerge through the 80s includes Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicolas Cage. All have won Academy Awards and countless critics awards; each has in some way elevated the films they have been in. Among that notable list, Nicolas Cage stands…
By John H. Foote (****) In theatres Robert Eggars made a stunning directorial debut in 2015 with his haunting horror film The Witch, set during the early Puritan days around 1690. It was easily one of the greatest debuts in modern cinema. An actors’ director with a fanatical eye for detail, Eggars followed that sensational…
By John H. Foote (***) In Theatres Michael Bay has been the target of much scornful film criticism the last few years because his movies have, frankly, sucked. Though he is a master technician, capable of creating stunning action sequences, massive bits of chaos onscreen, and overwhelming visual effects, character development has never graced his…
By John H. Foote Now streaming on Prime / Available soon on Blu Ray (****) The first time I screened this film I liked it very much, but it did not knock me out as most of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films tend to do. The second time, it blew me out of the room. Was…
By John H. Foote (BOMB) In Theatres My late colleague Nick adored super hero movies, I mean he loved them. Watching the latest Spider Man – No Way Home (2021) I could almost hear him beside me giggling like a school girl when Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire, both former Spider Men, showed up in…
By John H. Foote (**) In theatres How many actors have portrayed Batman since 1989? Take a wild guess. In 33 years, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, and now Robert Pattinson have worn the dark knight cape (that’s six). For me, the best of them was Bale, who played the…
By John H. Foote (****) In Theatres The great love story for the ages is said to be Romeo and Juliet. Frankly. I have always preferred Cyrano de Bergerac, written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand, a mature and brilliant love story that vastly soars past Romeo and Juliet. No question, Shakespeare created a magnificent piece…
By John H. Foote (***) In theatres now. Streaming in January. Some in the theatre world hold a superstition that to utter the title “Macbeth” or any lines from that play will doom the stage performance. Some actors hold this belief religiously, some do not. I was directing in the 80’s and 90’s and worked…