The autumn of Robert De Niro’s extraordinary career has been a period of prolific emptiness — an assembly-line churn of comedies about dirty and eccentric old men whose titles are as interchangeable as their content. Thank goodness, then, for Martin Scorsese and scant other directors, who still realize that De Niro is a vessel for a certain strand of dark magnetism, a shadowy … [Read more...]
2023-24 Season in Film: Rich cinema bounty for 2023, but strike will affect 2024
There’s good news and bad news for the strike-riddled film industry. The good news is that the fall release schedule should not be adversely affected, since the work by screenwriters and actors on films slated to open by the end of this calendar year was all completed before their guilds called them to strike. (They will open, mostly on schedule, but with a lot less … [Read more...]
2019’s Top 10 in Film: Scorsese’s ‘Irishman’ leads the field
Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime will play a major qualitative role in awards and best lists, if not box office, this year. Everything looks better on a theater screen rather than your home TV, but a film like Martin Scorsese’s epic, three-and-a-half-hour The Irishman seems designed for home viewing, with its ability to accommodate bathroom and nap breaks. … [Read more...]