As a horror movie setting, a groty carnival on the beaches of Santa Cruz in 1986 is a ready-made place to start. And so begins Us, Jordan Peele’s gripping new creep show. A proud father has just won his curious little girl, Adelaide Wilson (Madison Curry), a prize at one of the midway games. She picks a Michael Jackson “Thriller” T-shirt (speaking of scary things), many … [Read more...]
‘Queen of Katwe’ captures underdog story beautifully
Chess in movies is never just about chess. It’s about geopolitics, as in Pawn Sacrifice, or self-actualization, as in Queen to Play, or the tribulations of coming of age, as in Searching for Bobby Fischer. And in the greatest of all chess films, The Seventh Seal, it’s literally a matter of life and death. For a game so pensive, cerebral and seemingly un-cinematic, it’s … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway, No. 3: Guilty pleasures of ‘Psycho’ win out
Benjamin Walker in American Psycho. If you work at it, Sunday can be a two-show day, for me capped by the malevolent musical American Psycho, based on Bret Easton Ellis's icy novel of a 1980s Wall Street account executive and serial killer. Yes, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd came first in making multiple murders an apt topic for the musical stage, but unlikePsycho's … [Read more...]