“Brokeback Mountain opened in Portland, Maine, today,” writes resident Chris Gray. “I got out of work at 9 pm in hopes of making a 9:40 pm show just five minutes away, and there was a line around the block. Sold out, as was the show before that. A friend called me from inside the theater before it began and said he feels like part of a big cultural sensation. Granted, this is a much more bohemian town than most, but we’re hardly motivated enough to sell out a movie theater with such exclamation. I’m ready to bargain that I won’t be able to see Brokeback Mountain if I try until the last showing Sunday night.”
These stories about Brokeback Mountain getting suddenly pulled from theatres [see below] in both Salt Lake City and Pulsbo, Washington, are terrific. I love it when the red brigades get all morally adamant and dig in their heels…it’s good drama. Ang Lee’s film moved into 215 new theatres yesterday (Friday, 1.6). If there are any new incidents happening anywhere else in the country, please advise.

“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...

The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner's Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg's tastiest and wickedest film -- intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...