Spielberg delivers one of his most personal, poignant films — In The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s (West Side Story, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln) semi-autobiographical portrait of a filmmaker as a young man, Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord), Spielberg’s semi-fictional analogue, ventures into the cavernous dark of of a New Jersey movie theater to watch Cecil B. DeMille’s Oscar winner, The Greatest…

The Menu skewers everything from our entitled elites to haute cuisine — Moments into The Menu, a scabrous social, political, and cultural satire directed by Mark Mylod (Succession, Shameless, Game of Thrones) from a Black List script credited to Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, a super-select clientele comprised of various members of our privileged, entitled elites, take a tour led by Elsa…

Producer George Pal’s Ultra Sci-Fi Efforts Goes Ultra High-Def — Science fiction on film wouldn’t have been the same without uber-producer George Pal. Born and raised in Hungary, Pal created “Puppetoons,” first-gen animation involving replacement technology (a decades earlier precursor to Laika’s efforts in animation). The rise of Nazism in Western Europe led to Pal, like so many other filmmakers…

Filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s mid-’90s peak remains unparalleled — In Atom Egoyan’s (Remember, Chloe, Ararat) career-redefining fifth, feature-length film, Exotica, a Toronto-based strip club, also called “Exotica,” becomes a literal and figurative microcosm for an exploration of ‘90s-era sexuality, performative and otherwise, and the essentially transactional nature of personal and professional relationships typical of late-stage capitalism. It’s intentional, not…

Parker Finn’s feature-film debut embraces its J-Horror roots — The horror genre contains multitudes. Almost infinitely malleable, horror can embrace the universality of myth and the granular specifics of culture. Something as seemingly innocent like a smile, a facial expression typically associated with tenderness, amusement, or even delight, can be turned into a uniquely disturbing image the longer it’s…

Joel Schumacher’s ’80s classic vampire comedy-horror gets the premium 4K/Blu treatment — For the last 34 years, the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) selects 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry, each one to their historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions to American cinema. Totaling 850 separate films, the registry has yet to include the 1987 release of Joel Schumacher’s (Phone…

A little-known African story gets the big-budget, feature-film treatment — Last week, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and other commonwealth realms, holder of the longest recorded reign in European history, breathed her last after enjoying free room and board at taxpayer expense for the better part of a century. As much of the English-speaking world mourned the end…

Gender-flipped Norman Bates wreaks havoc in an imaginative, gory thriller — With the Queen of England dead four years shy of 100, but not yet buried, the declaration of a seemingly indulgent 10-day mourning period for her subjects came into effect. With that 10-day mourning period came what some have called, somewhat ominously, the “Queue,” the never-ending, always expanding line of…

A taut, tense, well-mounted disaster-in-the-sky epic — Half a century ago, cinema goers could buy a ticket, grab some popcorn and a soft drink of their choice on their way into a sticky-floored movie theater, and sit down to immerse themselves in the first star-packed disaster film, Airport, of the decade. With a central plot involving a…