If you knew Rick Singer prior to 2019, chances are good that you worked for a prestigious university or were a very, very wealthy parent. The tall man with the gray Frankenstein’s-monster haircut ran a consulting and college-counseling business called “The Key”; having been an actual high school basketball coach …
Read More »'Tom and Jerry': Cat v. Mouse: Dawn of Justice
Once upon a time, there was a cat. His name was Tom. Some folks at an animation studio thought it’d be a good idea to pair him with a mouse. After an exhaustive search on several continents, they found a young, aspiring rodential star named Jerry. Never mind the centuries …
Read More »'For All Mankind' Season 2 Takes Flight
When astronaut Tracy Stevens (Sarah Jones) lands on the moon midway through the second season of the AppleTV+ sci-fi drama For All Mankind, she is the biggest celebrity NASA has — a regular Tonight Show guest at a moment when Johnny Carson’s couch is still the center of the pop-cultural …
Read More »'The Baby-Sitters Club' Is Retro Fun With A Modern Message
Kristy’s Great Idea, the first novel in Ann M. Martin’s long-running, mega-selling The Baby-Sitters Club series, was published in 1986. In it, seventh grader Kristy recruits best friend Mary-Anne, their estranged friend Claudia, and new girl Stacey to start a business to fill childcare gaps in their suburban Connecticut town. …
Read More »'Love, Victor': A Coming-Out Story That Doubles As A Corrective
Love, Victor, the TV spin-off of the 2018 film Love, Simon, opens up with a sequence designed equally for those who have seen the movie and for those (like me) who haven’t. The show’s title character, high school student Victor Salazar (Michael Cimino), summarizes the plot of the movie — …
Read More »'The Half of It' Review: Closeted Student Plays Cyrano in Delightful YA Romcom
Picture a modernized, queer-teen version of Cyrano de Bergerac, in which the title character is a closeted Chinese-American girl who’s hired by a tongue-tied jock to write love letters to win the heart and mind the high-school queen they both secretly love. That’s the starting point for Alice Wu’s sweetly …
Read More »'6 Underground': Movie Stars, Action, Guns, Booms, T&A, Michael Bay
In the old days, i.e. 2017, you had to go to your local multiplex to see a Michael Bay blockbuster. You know the type of movie we’re talking about: explosions, robots, shots which last 0.003 seconds, chiseled dudes, smokin’-hot babes. (Not “men” and “women.” There are no such things as …
Read More »'Primal' Review: Genddy Tartakovsky's All-Dinosaur, No-Dialogue Epic
A bright green-blue stream fills the screen. The sound of the jungle — a few buzzing insects, some chirping birds — echo across the soundtrack. A fish slowly swims into the frame, with a few more lazily trailing behind him. Suddenly, a spear comes out of nowhere, stabbing one of …
Read More »'The Kitchen' Review: Melissa McCarthy's Mob Drama Is Undercooked
Oh, what a movie The Kitchen could have been. It seems impossible to screw up a crime thriller starring Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss as mob wives who turn the tables on the men who done them wrong. On paper, it’s a great idea to have Andrea Berloff, …
Read More »'The Quiet One' Review: Bill Wyman Doc Goes Wide, Not Deep
Ever since he was a lad, Bill Perks Jr. was a chronic collector. Photos, books, records, flotsam and jetsam from the bombed neighborhoods of Blitz-era Britain — the skinny kid had a knack for squirreling stuff away that had sentimental value to him. He also started keeping a journal at …
Read More »