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The skies are typically gray and gloomy at the Berlin International Film Festival, but this year’s edition, which runs through Sunday, began with snow for days. The wintry weather gave the event — known as the Berlinale — a magical glow at first, but it wasn’t enough to keep the demons at bay. Looming over … Read more
Olga James, an actress and operatic soprano whose career highlights occurred nearly back to back in the mid-1950s — as Harry Belafonte’s jilted girlfriend in the all-Black musical film “Carmen Jones” and as Sammy Davis Jr.’s love interest in the Broadway show “Mr. Wonderful” — died on Jan. 25 in Los Angeles. She was 95. … Read more
‘Blasting’ Stream it on Tubi. Seven years after a jewelry store robbery gone wrong, Gui (Lei Zhong), one of the thieves, has emerged from hiding to demand money from his former partner (Luo Da Hua). A bomb squad officer (Bai Hai Tao), who’s still haunted by that day, wants to put both men in jail, … Read more
The Danish heist thriller “The Quiet Ones” centers on a big score that involves using garbage trucks to block the major roads in Copenhagen to buy the thieves enough time to raid a cash-handling firm. The many moving parts get the better of the filmmakers. The director, Frederik Louis Hviid, opens the movie with a … Read more
The British family that has steered the James Bond franchise for more than 60 years, zealously protecting the superspy from the indignities of Hollywood strip mining, has agreed to relinquish control to Amazon. The deal, which was announced Thursday morning, comes after a behind-the-scenes standoff between Barbara Broccoli, who inherited control of Bond from her … Read more
The New York stage has some notable nostalgia this year: More than a half-dozen performers in significant roles made their Broadway debuts as children. Some were in hits and some were in flops; they experienced joy and (in one case) trauma. A few have appeared onstage with regularity, while others pursued music or film and … Read more
In the warped new horror-comedy “The Monkey” (in theaters), Theo James plays Hal and Bill, estranged twin brothers who are besieged by a possessed music-making monkey toy they got under gruesome circumstances when they were boys. Once that little monkey starts a tinny rat-tat-tat on his drum, nobody’s safe. Based on a Stephen King short … Read more
Whether documentary or fiction, the sports movie template is so well-worn — we were underdogs, then we won, and it was amazing — that it’s rare to execute a new twist on the formula. And in some ways, “We Beat the Dream Team” (streaming on Max), directed by Michael Tolajian, follows that recipe. Its title … Read more
Maybe Big Tech hasn’t delivered on its disruptive promise for movies after all: We’ve cut our cable cords for price and convenience only to pay just as much (if not more) to jump through hoops and across platforms, with diminishing returns in quality. But there’s always good work being made. This new column, then, is … Read more
Goes bananas on the gore. ‘The Monkey’ After a cursed toy monkey from his childhood reappears, a man (Theo James) tries to stop it in this horror comedy directed by Osgood Perkins. From our review: The movie’s presumption is that the more inventive the means of death — and the more quickly those means are … Read more