My Courses

The first and last films of any filmmaker’s oeuvre serve as fascinating signposts of their work — sometimes they feel like acute demonstrations of their progress as filmmakers throughout the years, others feel like elliptical representations of the same themes and images they’ve been obsessed with their whole career. A bold debut can mellow into…

Some people become actors because they crave an audience, a camera, a director, or the fans. Some do it because they love to become other people, transform themselves, or tell stories. Shelley Duvall, who died this week at age 75, became an actress because Robert Altman saw her and knew that movie-goers would be instantly drawn…

“Fly Me to the Moon” lurches wildly from zippy, retro rom-com to cynical political satire to weighty, remorseful drama and back again. Tonally messy and overlong, director Greg Berlanti’s film ultimately squanders the considerable charms of its A-list stars, Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, who are individually appealing but have zero chemistry with each other.  Johansson is especially charismatic here as Kelly Jones, a late-’60s ad executive who gets plucked…

Film festivals are good for the soul. While the big ones like TIFF and Sundance can sometimes feel a bit like money machines, the little ones give oxygen to art. Even one where the altitude is high enough that there’s less of it in the air.  In June 2024, the fifth annual Ouray Film Festival…

The intrigue of MGM+’s “The Emperor of Ocean Park” turns on the sudden demise of federal judge Oliver Garland (Forest Whitaker), found one day at his desk dead of an apparent heart attack. The news sends ripples through the media, and disrupts the lives of his three adult children — Talcott “Tal” Garland (Grantham Coleman), a…