Steven Spielberg’s musical remake “West Side Story” leads the pack, offering a modern update on the tarnished Oscar-winning best picture of 1961. Full disclosure: Spielberg’s “West Side Story” was my and likely other non-Broadway fans’ entry point into the material. Having never experienced the Broadway show, nor the original film, or even heard a single […]
Jonathan Larson, the creator of the hit musical “Rent” (which earned Pulitzer and Tony awards) is the subject of this film as he was writing one of its predecessors. He is young—not yet 30—but wants to set the Broadway world on fire with his musicals. He captures the interest of one who turned out to be his
By now you have seen the trailer, read my thoughts from the world premiere at TIFF, and heard how “Dear Evan Hansen” has been drug through the social-media mud all before hitting theaters. That begs the question, is the film adaptation of the Tony Award Winning “Dear Evan Hansen” really that bad? The answer will
Respect shows a cross-section of Aretha Franklin’s life from her childhood up through the first several of her many successes (1972 album Amazing Grace). It makes good use of flashbacks to fill out the early stories, showing the kind of background from which Aretha came and the strong influence of her father throughout her life. His influence even extends
You might have heard that Amazon’s new film opened the Cannes Film Festival with a five-minute standing ovation. What you also should know is the Cannes audience is made up of international participants whose tastes rarely align with the mainstream. “Annette” might be the first and last high-profile experimental film Amazon Studios sends to Prime
In his first film since the smash hit “Crazy Rich Asians,” director Jon M. Chu teams with Tony award-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda bringing his Broadway hit “In the Heights” to the big screen. If you like your musicals flashy, long and chaotic, “In the Heights” will certainly satisfy that missing element from the box office. A
Tom Hooper’s film version of “Cats” the musical is as bizarre as it is confusing. The adaptation has suffered greatly upon rollout, stemming from visual effect backlash when the characters were unveiled. The concept of taking actors’ faces and digitally inserting them into this amalgamation of human/cat bodies is the kind of peculiar you stare
Academy Award winner Renee Zellweger (“Cold Mountain,” “Chicago”) drops a house on the acting competition this year, portraying one of our most beloved film icons. “A blip” is what Bridget Jones would have called Zellweger’s soft return in the third installment of the Jones character, but “Judy” isn’t simply a comeback, it redefines the Texan’s
Stupidity abounds in Danny Boyle’s latest film “Yesterday” which comes to us from a Richard Curtis (“About Time”, “Love Actually”) script. The origins of the story are the main selling points of the trailer and also the films most charming moments. After the blackout that causes The Beatles, Coca-Cola, and cigarettes to disappear, the entire film
Like with Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s impossible not to be moved by the performance of the leading actor. Only this time, Dexter Fletcher gets full credit and doesn’t have to worry about controversy. Taron Egerton might have a bit more feature film experience than Rami Malik did, but still a relative newcomer portraying an icon. Elton