Mad Props – For the Movie Collector Nerds Amongst Us

By Elias Savada. Humankind’s appetite for many things nostalgic is at play here, and it is a satisfying meal.” Most folks who do genealogy, like myself, cherish old photos of their great-great grandparents, a family bible with birth, death, and marriage records handwritten in the back, or assorted documents and […]

Dune: Part Two – The Myth Continues, Big and Loud

By Elias Savada. Dune: Part Two succeeds on its many storyline levels, big and small. Passion, power, corruption, oppression, romance, intimacy, and revenge all get their time in this sweeping spectacle.” Okay, it’s been awhile since Dune (well, only a few hours in elapsed cinematic time), but the wait is […]

Drive Away Dolls: On a Goofy Coen Road Comedy

By Elias Savada. Gags and pratfalls ensue, many funny and more than a few blush-worthy as the film speeds through its brief 84-minute running time.” Sure, we’ve been conditioned over the last 40 years that you can’t have one Coen (brother) without the other. Two peas in a pod. Ethan […]

Spies So Silly: Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle

By Elias Savada. An incredibly overproduced, over-CGI’ed Universal release.” Even before its release, rumors were frantically flying all over the internet that the only recently published “inspired by” source novel (released January 9th) for Argylle (released February 2nd), the latest film from producer-director-writer Matthew Vaughn, was written not by Elly […]

The Holdovers: Alexander Payne Rises Again

By Elias Savada. A big, gift-wrapped present filled with sentimentality and lovely, effective performances….” Always a visionary, and one whose seven previous features as a director have garnered considerable acclaim—the sole, gaping-wound exception being 2017’s Downsizing, a disastrous journey into sci-fi dramedy with Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig—director-producer-writer Alexander Payne […]

She Has Overcome: Joan Baez I Am a Noise

By Elias Savada. A lovely curtain call, offering time for Joan to frame how she ultimately crushed her life-long demons. It’s a heartbreaking journey into the horrifying past and a heartwarming walk into a future of forgiveness.” I always envisioned this legendary folk musician and activist as the Baby Boomer […]

The Creator: Something Rotten in the State of AI

By Elias Savada. With all the talk of artificial intelligence taking over our lives, this technically proficient film may be timely, but its futuristic concept – mankind vs. an enemy of its own making – flails about as a misguided, muddled search for (non-)human salvation.” I can’t accept the overblown […]

Boo-Who-dunit – Kenneth Branagh Sinks A Haunting in Venice

By Elias Savada. Not the charm you might be hoping for, unless you’re a fan of endless rain, too many jump scares, unsettling camera angles, ragged hand-held camerawork, onerous close-ups, and a score drowning in dreary woodwinds and screechy violins.” Those actor-ensemble, murder mystery set pieces you’ve experienced in movie […]

Barbie: Greta Gerwig’s Unboxing

By Elias Savada. Gerwig leaves a personal imprint on her film, as a boldly painted battle cry for womanhood and subversive social satire about misguided male perceptions.” In a refreshingly anarchistic, pink-pastel manner, Greta Gerwig, the actor (Frances Ha) turned writer (here with her partner – in business and in […]