Category Archives: Film Reviews

Film reviews and analyses. Most recently published is in front.

The Jolson Story

Posted on May 15, 2026 by Mark DuPré

This film from 1946 should not hold up. I was just checking off a box when I decided to see it. The film is based on the life of an entertainer who was essentially forgotten by the time it was … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Older Films | Tagged Amadeus, blackface, Bohemian Rhapsody, Columbia, film, history, jazz, Jolson Sings Again, Judy Garland, Larry Parks, minstrelsy, movies, music, My Three Sons, Night and Day, reviews, Rhapsody in Blue, Rudy Wissler, Scotty Beckett, The Dolly Sisters, The Jazz Singer, The Jolson Story, Till the Clouds Roll By, William Demarest | Leave a comment

The Devil Wears Prada 2

Posted on May 11, 2026 by Mark DuPré

The first film was fun, lively, and had a few very good and one great performance in Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly. Twenty years later, we have three Oscar winners (Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Kenneth Branagh), two Oscar nominee (Emily Blunt … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Newer films | Tagged A New Hope, Anne Hathaway, Elon Musk, Emily Blunt, film, Jeff Bezos, Justin Theroux, Kenneth Branagh, Meryl Streep, Miranda Priestly, movies, Runway, Stanley Tucci, The Devil Wears Prada, The Empire Strikes Back | Leave a comment

Weapons

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Mark DuPré

I was loving the film Weapons right up until Aunt Gladys forcefully enters and takes over the narrative. (She is presented subtly earlier in the film.) Aunt Gladys is played in a delightfully over-the-top fashion by Amy Madigan in an … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Newer films | Tagged Amy Madigan, Aunt Gladys, Cary Christopher, Haley Joel Osment, horror, Josh Brolin, movies, Oscar, The Sixth Sense, Weapons, zach-cregger | Leave a comment

Dark Victory (1939)

Posted on March 27, 2026 by Mark DuPré

Melodramas have a bad reputation, as if this were a lesser genre than say, the musical, action/adventure, the biopic, the suspenseful thriller, and horror. But Gone with the Wind was a melodrama, as was Titanic. More recently, Manchester by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Older Films | Tagged Academy Awards, All This and Heaven Too, awards, Bette Davis, Beyond the Forest, Casablanca, Dangerous, Dark Victory, Edmund Goulding, Emilia Perez, film, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gone with the Wind, Grand Hotel, High Sierra, Humphrey Bogart, In This Our Life, Jezebel, Johnny Belinda, King's Row, Knute Rockne All American, Life with Father, Manchester by the Sea, Max Steiner, MGM, Mildred Pierce, movies, Now Voyager, Of Human Bondage, Oscars, Petrified Forest, Ronald Reagan, Scarlett O'Hara, Since You Went Away, The Caine Mutiny, The Garden of Allah, The Great Lie, The Informer, The Iron Claw, The Maltese Falcon, The Old Maid, The Rich are Always With Us, The Roaring Twenties, The Whale, Vivien Leigh, Warner Brothers, Wuthering Heights | Leave a comment

M

Posted on March 3, 2026 by Mark DuPré

A child molester-murderer is on the loose. A city is terrified, and mothers are keeping children close. Police, who are too many times lazy and distracted, finally focus on the case. The underground syndicate also wants to find the murderer, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Older Films | Tagged A Free Soul, Casablanca, film, Fritz Lang, horror, lietmotiv, Lionel Barrymore, Looney Tunes, M, movie-reviews, movies, Peter Lorre, police procedural, reviews, serial killer, Sophia Loren, The Women, thriller | Leave a comment

“Wuthering Heights” (2026)

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Mark DuPré

“Wuthering Heights” is a gorgeous looking fetid fever-dream that takes one too many turns toward the twisted and perverse in a story already full of darkness. It’s a spicy paperback come to pulsating and regrettable life. Think gilding the lily, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Newer films | Tagged "Adolescence", "Wuthering Heights", Cathy, Charlotte Mellington, Emerald Fennell, emily-bronte, Gone with the Wind, Heathcliff, Hong Chau, Jacob Elordi, John Barrymore, Leslie Howard, Margot Robbie, Marie Anthoinette, Martin Clunes, Norma Shearer, Owen. Cooper, Romeo and Juliet, Sofia Coppolla, The Wale, Wuthering Heights | Leave a comment

Blue Moon

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Mark DuPré

Blue Moon is a 2025 small, focused film that addressed that great musical theater moment when “Rodgers and Hart” died, and “Rodgers and Hammerstein” was born, and its effects on Hart. We’re talking the great composer/lyricist team of Richard Rodgers … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Newer films | Tagged A Complete Unkknown, Andrew Scott, Before Midnight, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Blue Moon, Bobby Cannavale, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Carousel, Dancing on the Ceiling, E.G White, Elizabeth Weiland, Ethan Hawke, Falling in Love with Love, Ferrari, George Hill, George Roy Hill, Jonah Lees, Lorenz Hart, Margaret Qualley, Maria, Mickey Rooney, My Funny Valentine, My Heart Stood Still, Oklahoma!, Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Linklater, Richard Rodgers, Sardi's, South Pacitic, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Stephen Sondheim, Ten Cents a Dance, The King and I, The Lady is a Tramp, The Sound of Music, The Sting, Tom Drake, Where or When, Words and Music | Leave a comment

The Lost Squadron (1932)

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Mark DuPré

The Lost Squadron is a pre-Code* melodrama/buddy movie/action film/romance/murder film, and yes, the film is as pieced together and strange as that description sounds. The plot is an easy and straightforward one at the beginning but then it takes some … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Older Films | Tagged Cimarron, Coming Home, David O. Selznick, Dawn Patrol, Erich von Stroheim, George Archainbaud, Greed, Hell's Angels, Joel McCrea, King Kong, La Grande Illusion, Mary Astor, Pre-Code, Richard Dix, RKO, Roger Armstrong, Sunset Boulevard, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Big Parade, The Great Lie, The Lost Squadron, The Roading Twenties, What Price Hollywood?, Wings | Leave a comment

Avatar: Fire and Ash and Mercy

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Mark DuPré

Within a short period of time, I saw a $400,000,000 behemoth of a film, and right after, a short and narratively tight $60,000,000 film. I enjoyed the smaller film. The first, of course, is the third installment of the Avatar … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Newer films | Tagged Amanda Wilcer, Avatar: Fire and Ice, Avatar: The Way of Water, Chris Pratt, Dances with Wolves, Enemy of the State, James Cameron, Mercy, Minority Report, movies, Pamdora, Rebecca Ferguson, Rick Java, Studio 54 | Leave a comment

An Unfortunate Remake: High and Low (1963) / Highest 2 Lowest (2025)

Posted on January 17, 2026 by Mark DuPré

Remakes have a reputation of being inferior to the original. That’s not always true; there are many good-to-great films that are remakes. Some of the best include: The Maltese Falcon ((1941), a remake of the 1931 film of the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews, Film-Related Articles, Newer films, Older Films | Tagged A Star is Born, American Fiction, Anthony Ramos, Ben-Hur, David King, Denzel Washington, Diddy, Do the Right Thing, Fanfare d'Amour, film, Gondo, High and Low, Highest 2 Lowest, His Girl Friday, Hitchcock, Infernal Affairs, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Japan, Jay-Z, Jeffrey Wright, Liam Neeson, Love Affair, Manhattan, Mariah Carey, Marlon Brando, movies, Oceans 11, Psycho, Rashoman, Rosie Perez, Samuel L. Jackson, Satan Met a Lady, Sean Combs, Seven Samourai, Some Like it Hot, Spike Lee, The Blob, The Departed, The Fly, The Front Page, The Godfather, The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Ten Commandments, The Thomas Crown Affair, Throne of Blood, Tom Cruise, Toshiro Mifune, True Grit, Westworld, Whitney Houston, Yojimbo, Yutaka Sada | Leave a comment