If you had to spend the rest of your life locked down in a safe house, and you only had one complete series you could watch, with no masks in sight, no war, no impending doom, what would it be? “Friends?” “Seinfeld?” Those are top rate comedies. Both of those series are now bronzed in […]
Movie Review J.P. Devine
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‘The Defiant Ones’ worth seeing, if only to honor the great Poitier, Kramer
Stanley Kramer gave us “High Noon” 1952 and “Judgement at Nuremberg” 1961 and that alone is enough to cast Kramer in gold. His “The Defiant Ones” in 1958 wasn’t in the same league with those brilliant pieces. Tony Curtis got to play chain-gang baddie Johnny Jackson, a snarling racist small-time criminal, in a time when […]
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‘Munich: The Edge of War’ soft, dark and occasionally nail-biting espionage thriller
Every few years someone asks, “What ever happened to Jeremy Irons?” And then he pops up as Alfred in Zach Snyder’s “Batman” and “Justice League” as Scar in “The Lion King” and in the “House of Gucci,” where, with his usual charm and woolen suits, plays a son of the great Gucci. Irons is very […]
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‘Parallel Mothers’ is like a neglected blister on what is at its core, the story of women
I’m definitely not one of the many fans of the internationally acclaimed Spanish writer director Pedro Almodovar. Remember here, that I’m a film “reviewer” not “critic,” even though I can get cranky. I’ve only seen two of Almodovar’s films, because of his two favorite actors, Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas. I would watch laxative commercials […]
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‘The Crown’ makes disappointing casting changes in Season 5
It’s back, and we’re happy to seek out those calmer seas, gorgeous settings and new handsome royals from the past. Well, it’s back, but the wrinkles and sags are showing. It happens to the best of us. “The Crown,” with its four seasons of civility, gorgeous cinematography, splendid words and fussy decor are there, but […]
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Hilary Swank hits the small screen in ‘Alaska Daily’
Oscar winner Hilary Swank is back, on a much smaller screen, but we have missed her and we’ll take her, no matter the size on the tube. Here is our Hilary in Tom McCarthy’s (“The Station Agent,” “Spotlight”) as Eileen Fitzgerald, an Irish-American newspaper reporter. Irish she is, with a sheet-metal attitude, a dockworker’s mouth, […]
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‘1883’ action first rate, powerful
Writer/director Taylor Sheridan has been on fire the last few years. He worked his way up from a small parts actor in shows like “Sons of Anarchy” to screenwriter and creator to hit shows like “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Yellowstone”. And in the year of flying Spiderman and buckets of sitcoms and rom coms and […]
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‘Being the Ricardos’ not very exciting, but yours to judge
It’s not that I didn’t “Love Lucy,” I didn’t know Lucy. I never saw the show when it began. The show debuted in 1951, and was a big hit and ran until 1957. I wasn’t watching television in those days. I went from Air Force basic training in the Texas desert to Korea/Japan, with no […]
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‘The Food That Built America’ explores the foods we grew up with in a new light
Way back in 2019, before COVID fell on us, we were all going to the movies, and no one was sitting home locked away from viruses in the streets very few Americans were streaming their televisions desperate for something different. Meanwhile, while Notre Dame Cathedral was burning down, Brexit upended British politics, the 20-year war […]
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J.P. Devine: Larry David’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ returns
Larry is back. Not Larry Fine of the Three Stooges, but Larry David of “Seinfeld” fame, with his 11th season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Are we happy? We’ve waited a long time for this, right? And while we waited, the sky fell in on us with a virus out of China, one that Marco Polo […]