By John H. Foote (***) I apologize in advance for the use of a single word in this review. I detest the word, but to make my point, needed to use it. Truly, I am sorry for its inclusion. Though it is fact Cassius Clay (before he was Ali), Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim…
By John H. Foote (**) Now in theatres Let me state that the complaints about the sound mix of Tenet are absolutely true, the dialogue is often impossible to decipher. It is hard enough to figure out the wild narrative that requires your absolute attention, but when you cannot hear what many of the characters…
By John H. Foote (**) Streaming on Apple Jessica Chastain has now cornered the market on portraying beautiful, confident women, highly intelligent, always the smartest person in the room. Interesting that she burst into fame as the sad, unprejudiced woman in The Help (2011), light years from the strong women she would go on to…
By John H. Foote (****) Streaming on Apple /Now on Blu Ray Rod Lurie is a rock-solid film director who, until The Outpost, I was not sure whether he was an artist or not. His film The Contender (2000) remains one of the finest political films ever made, and I had hoped his career might soar after that. Hollywood…
By John H. Foote (**) It has been a long time since we have seen Russell Crowe in a lead role, in a major film. Emerging out of Australian cinema after Romper Stomper (1996), he followed it with a central and outstanding performance in L.A. Confidential (1997) which put him on the map as an…
By John H. Foote (**) Now Streaming on Apple. Tom Hanks has enjoyed a solid history with the war genre. In fact World War II has been very good to the two-time Academy Award winning Best Actor. Hanks was first seen in a war film in the brilliant Saving Private Ryan (1998) for which he…
By John H. Foote (****) Streaming on Netflix It took two viewings of this new film from Spike Lee for me to truly understand the power, perhaps because as a white man I will never understand the black experience and what it was to be black and fighting the war in Vietnam. History has shown…
By Nick Maylor (*) I’m a big fan of Kenneth Branagh, both as an actor and a director. He’s shown tremendous talent in front of the camera and behind it. He has taken on many famous worlds of popular folklore. He’s directed in the realms of Shakespeare, Marvel, Tom Clancy, Disney Princesses, Agatha Christie and…
By John H. Foote (**) Al Capone has been portrayed often onscreen, most recently by the great Stephen Graham in Boardwalk Empire where the actor captured the ambition and fury of a young Capone. Robert De Niro is perhaps the most famous Capone on film in The Untouchables (1987), wielding a baseball bat with deadly…
By John H. Foote (****) Each year great films slip through the cracks, often to be discovered on Blu Ray or rep cinemas, though the latter has become less frequent. Queen and Slim was such a film for me, and one I regret not seeing sooner. If I had, the film would have cracked my…