Movie Lamp

PLOT: A boy is left at his home alone while his family is off on vacation and must soon defend his house from two burglars trying to steal a valuable doll. REVIEW: The original Home Alone became an instant hit in 1990 because watching the undeniably, even iconically charming Macaulay Culkin embrace life on his own and use creative, dangerous means of thwarting Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern is eternally entertaining. The reason why it has remained a holiday season staple for 30 years is that laced within all the holiday mayhem is also a sweet, warm story about togetherness, aided by John Williams on the keys with that classic of Christmas movie scores. Now decades and several forgettable sequels later, new entry Home Sweet Home Alone exists solely for Disney to flex how much franchisable IP it now has after acquiring 20th Century Fox, which actually wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if the movie had any shred of the memorable qualities of the original and wasn’t an immense miss ...

The first thing that stands out for Eternals will be the visuals. Director Chloé Zhao brought her incredible eye for scenery and cinematography into this film without fail. The wide shots, colorful backgrounds, and even the CGI used for the Deviants were all captivating. L to R: Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo by Sophie Mutevelian. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved. I particularly loved the shots where we follow the Eternals during their fights. One example would be the scenes with the speedster, Makkari. The special effects used to show her top speed, slow motion, and real-time action were impeccable. Another example would be when we follow Ikarus as he flies and fights Deviants. The over the shoulder camera angle puts you right in the middle of the action and it was pretty exhilarating. It was one of the best visual experiences I’ve seen for a flying superhero. (Superman you have 48 hours to respond). Ikaris (Richard Madden) ...

PLOT: In 1969, a family finds their happy lives in Belfast threatened by a lack of work and the start of the Troubles. REVIEW: Kenneth Branagh ‘s Belfast is by far his most personal film. If you’ve read anything about his upbringing, it’s not hard to figure out that this is a highly autobiographical film for the noted actor-director. I always thought of him as quintessentially English, but in reality, no, Branagh was born in Ireland and, in fact, only acquired “received pronunciation” in school to avoid childhood bullying. The Branagh stand-in here is young Jude Hill’s Buddy. A young lad who delights in his working class-Belfast neighborhood, he lives a carefree life bouncing between his home with his loving mum (Caitriona Balfe) and his adoring grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds). The only downside about the whole arrangement is that his dad (Jamie Dornan) is often away from home, as the only good-paying work for his profession is in England, so he’s only back every second we...

In Jennifer Abbott’s cinematic journey, the Sundance award-winning Director (The Corporation) draws intimate parallels between the experiences of grief—both personal and planetary. Stories from the frontlines of climate change merge with recollections from the filmmaker’s childhood on Ontario’s Georgian Bay. What do these stories have in common? The answer, surprisingly, is everything.  The Magnitude of All things is being screened at the Glasgow Film Theatre November 6th and 11th during COP26. The Good The Magnitude of All Things is a visually somber and emotionally visceral tale of human/nature connectedness, designed to impel action on climate change. One of the strengths of the film is in its avoidance of facts that appeal strictly to the logical side of the viewer. Instead, Magnitude strings together narratives of grief to make the viewer connect climate change to real human problems rather than abstract statistics. The pathos of the film should depoliticize what is often consid...

  Synopsis Confined to her apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Paloma, a young Spanish woman, goes on a dating site designed for women seeking other women. Before long she meets a lookalike, who begins to impersonate her with diabolical persistence, driving Paloma to track down the doppelganger and end the nightmare. The Good I must really like flicks upon which it is hard to hang a handle. I keep watchin’ the damn things! Take the latest among my confounding continuum, the new Spanish psychological horror brain scrambler “Ego”. Good movie. Taught, tense and terrifying. Great performances. María Pedraza as Paloma startles as a young woman riddled with incapacitating mental illness. She is bombarded with horrific and realistic visions, some appearing to be of herself , which she can neither control nor comprehend. Well filmed and directed. Superb scenes of a stay-at-home, pandemic-gutted Madrid, eerily empty streets and a spookily silent skyline. The Bad The preceding so s...

PLOT: In this recut of Rocky IV , the Italian Stallion (Sylvester Stallone) goes head-to-head with Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), the Soviet boxing champion, after the brutal defeat and death of Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). REVIEW: One of the most exciting projects to emerge from Covid-19 is certainly Rocky Vs Drago , Sylvester Stallone’s 35th-anniversary director’s cut of Rocky IV . While beloved by fans, Rocky IV has always been seen by many as comic-book-like. It’s the fantasy compared to the realism of the early Rocky films or the ones that followed it. There are a lot of goofy 80s things about the movie that date it, such as Paulie’s ever-controversial robot and the over-the-top political content. I suppose Stallone, in some ways, agreed with the criticisms, as this is a radical new take on the film that I’d hesitate even to call a director’s cut. It’s a complete re-imagining of the film. The press kit notes that even though the running time is almost the same, forty-two minutes...

PLOT: An adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical recounts his life nearing the age of 30, feeling like his career in musical theater is not where he thought it would be. REVIEW: As far as musicals on the big screen go, 2021, and perhaps the foreseeable future, belongs to Lin-Manuel Miranda , who has had his name on four big films this year in some capacity. There was the summer spectacle In the Heights (based on him and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ musical), the okay animated flick Vivo (which he wrote the music for and had the title voice role), and this month’s Disney animated feature Encanto (which he wrote the music for and contributed to the story). While those movies showcase his own musical gifts via an array of colorful showstoppers, his directorial debut tick, tick…Boom! finds him taking a backseat and at the service of another musical genius, Johnathan Larson, and the result is the musical marvel of the year that proves — among much more — Miranda is a force t...

PLOT: An FBI agent (Dwayne Johnson) who’s been framed by a notorious art thief (Gal Gadot) must team with another thief to get even and clear his name. REVIEW: Red Notice is apparently the priciest film in Netflix history, with a budget somewhere in the neighbourhood of 160-200 million dollars. It’s an attempt by them to create their own Fast & Furious -style franchise, complete with sexy thieves who operate outside the law, and a tough international cop, played by The Rock, trying to take them down before being forced to team up with them to clear his name. The character Dwayne Johnson plays here, John Hartley, is nearly identical to Luke Hobbs minus a few easy to predict twists and turns. You can’t blame Netflix. They want a franchise so pairing Dwayne Johnson with Ryan Reynolds, one of the most universally beloved actors out there, and Gal Gadot in a tried and true formula probably felt pretty safe. And that, my friends, is part of the problem. Red Notice is so assembly line...

PLOT: In a house where all the family members get a magical power, one girl without one sets out to find out what’s happening to their house when the magic appears to be fading. REVIEW: The great news about the new Disney animated musical Encanto is that anyone who’s been on board for the studio’s train of hits over the last ten years ( Tangled , Frozen , Moana , etc.) will almost certainly only walk away with good vibes come the credits. The songs (written here by Lin-Manuel Miranda) are incredibly catchy; the animation is once again stunning and bar-raising; you can count on all sorts of quirky side characters and animal creatures to steal the show with a hefty helping of laughs and; of course, you can expect your heartstrings to get a gentle tug. In essence, this movie featuring a magic house that gives magical powers to a magical family does everything the folks at the Magic Kingdom have been fine-tuning for years just right – and if that’s all you could ever need from a movi...