“Dumb Money” – Cha-ching! People love to fantasize about striking it rich in various ways. Winning the lottery, nailing the parlay at the track, becoming a YouTube star, or inheriting a fortune from cranky old Aunt Ethyl after she falls into a pile of fur coats and suffocates to death. What’s that? Aunt Ethyl is […]

Everyone has that relative who loves nothing more than to set up a slide show for two hours of show-and-tell about their recent trip to Baton Rouge. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 was a lot like that slide show… [TV suddenly shuts off the football game mid-third-quarter] Aunt Nia: [Sets down remote control] Ok […]

There is a certain sensibility to many 1970s Hollywood dramas, a style that has been imitated but rarely truly achieved in any subsequent era, a nihilistic feeling of doom and hopelessness that pervades at least until the sunshine beam of hope cracks through the darkness in the final scene (or not). It’s a blessing that […]

“Gran Turismo” – Nerds…in…raaAaAAaaaAaaace. Every video gamer dreams of playing video games as a career profession. I once seriously considered applying for a job as a video game tester that listed among its requirements a “deep knowledge of baseball.” My childhood dream was to become a professional baseball player and a job playing a baseball […]

“The Last Voyage of the Demeter” – Batman begins. The following is a series of entries from a critic’s log. 9 Aug, 7:15 pm – While searching for my seat, I am surrounded by groups of people dressed as if it is Halloween. They are not dressed in the cheap outfits found at certain Halloween […]

Full disclosure: I love Greta Gerwig. Lady Bird makes me ugly-cryface with gratitude every time I watch it. Her version of Little Women was revelatory and infuriatingly perfect (a writer yet to sell a screenplay notes). She was and is the perfect choice for the project, and when you factor in that longtime partner Noah […]