1187 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Dutch (Page 22)

While they say that love is eternal, eventually, even the greatest of love stories come to an end. Marriage vows foretell the reality of “to death do us part.” It’s an inevitability rarely explored in cinema, and even then, only in schmaltzy melodramatic weepers. Fortunately, Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert is free of schmaltz. Instead, the film deftly explores the process of a couple dealing with a terminal illness amid all the usual messiness of a real relationship.  Continue Reading →

At the risk of sounding a bit hyperbolic, there’s been something kind of magical about Doom Patrol. That trend continues into the fourth season's first six episodes, this writer is delighted to note. Continue Reading →

Disney released a “live-action” remake of Pinocchio earlier in the fall, which was greeted with the same indifferent to negative critical response their “live-action” remakes always receive. I put “live-action” in quotes because referring to them as such is a bit generous. They’re predominantly CGI, with barely enough human actors appearing to qualify as a regular feature rather than animation. As with the remakes of The Lion King and Aladdin, beyond the fact that there was simply no reason for it to exist, Pinocchio smacked of cynicism, and sent a clear message to audiences: we can keep making the same thing over and over, and you rubes will pay to see it.  Continue Reading →

I’m not skilled enough to write this review in Seussical verse. I wish I were. Then I could have Anthony Hopkins narrate it. Continue Reading →

The danger in revisiting anything surprising in its quality the first time around is the loss of that surprise. Once you know a book, movie, or TV series can tell compelling stories, crack great jokes, or create multi-dimensional characters, one can’t help but expect that from its follow-ups and sequels. When the shock is gone, can the work still deliver? If so, how? Continue Reading →

Willow didn’t catch on as a pop culture phenomenon like fellow Lucasfilm properties Star Wars and Indiana Jones upon its release. Still, it did ultimately achieve cult status. In these IP-obsessed times, that made a return to its fantasy realm all but inevitable. After all, Disney is giving every nostalgic property it owns a streaming sequel. Continue Reading →

It’s Christmas time, and a man at the breaking point finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. But he isn’t retired cop John McClane this time. Instead, it’s Saint Nick with a sledgehammer he’d like to swing into your bowl full of jelly. The premise of Violent Night is simple (Die Hard but with Santa), and the filmmakers mostly pull off the kill-fest thanks to some game performers and one inspired sequence.   Continue Reading →

Paolo (Colin Donnell), a mob fixer, is used to being the smartest person in the room. However, sometimes even the most intelligent guy makes dumb decisions. For Paolo, that begins with killing a mob boss’s son to save his own life. Then he makes that worse by going on the run with the boss’s money. But he's not done yet. Next up, he gets robbed by, of all people, a depressed Reverend, Mackenzie Boyd (P.J. Byrne), who decides to live it up on Paolo’s dime. Finally, he completes the progression of bad ideas by taking Boyd’s new job in the small town of oceanside town of Clump. There, he reasons, he can finally regain control of his life's wreckage. Continue Reading →

“The Big Aristotle.” “The Diesel.” “Shaq Daddy.” Shaquille O’Neal goes by many names, but above all these, he’s simply “Shaq.” Making Shaq a household name wasn’t a given at first. Of course, being 7’1” helps. That alone doesn’t make becoming a giant among the biggest names in basketball an easy task though. Shaq covers the career of the mammoth basketball legend in a four-part documentary, complete with in-depth coverage of the man’s personal and professional life, while handled with an up-close, in-your-face approach. That’s the Shaquille O’Neal way.  Continue Reading →

One thing you can say about Christmas and the Guardians of the Galaxy is that both tend to go a bit over the top. One’s affection for either depends greatly on how you feel about a good thing taken to excess. For this critic, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special hits that delicious “too much, but I can’t help but like it” sweet spot like seconds on the pecan pie. Continue Reading →

Nikyatu Jusu’s debut feature, Nanny is a story about the American Dream turned gothic nightmare. It’s a film whose horror lies in a deep-rooted sense of unease. It’s the feeling in your gut that something is wrong, even when you can’t name exactly what. Worse yet, knowing this creeping dread has nothing to do with everything so obviously wrong around you. It’s something else, something you can only assume (or fear) is so much worse than you imagine. Continue Reading →

There’s nothing wrong with adaptations finding their own path. In fact, it should be encouraged. Slavish devotion to the source material leads to dramatically inert material. That said, there are far better ways to adapt existing works than this. Echo 3’s team, led by series creator Mark Boal, has missed the mark in interpreting Amir Gutfreund’s novel When Heroes Fly and the first television adaption from Omri Givon. Continue Reading →

A little over 24 hours after seeing it, there are two sequences in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans that I've run on repeat back and forth. One dramatic, the other comedic—both illustrate the strengths of Spielberg's semi-autobiography. Continue Reading →

Jenna Ortega is having quite the year. Between the success of Ti West’s brilliant slasher X and leading the new Scream franchise, she’s poised to become our next reigning Queen of Creepy. This looks even more likely now as she brings the definitive goth teen to life in Netflix’s Wednesday, helmed by Tim Burton. Continue Reading →

“Not great, not terrible.” Continue Reading →

Few movies have as much misdirected nostalgia surrounding them as 1983’s A Christmas Story. Directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd’s folksy writing, it met with modest box office success (not nearly as much as the decidedly different Porky’s, Clark’s other film released the same year) but was just as quickly forgotten. It wasn’t until more than a decade later, once it made its way to basic cable, that it found a devoted audience. However, the audience didn’t consist of near-senior citizens who found something familiar in its 1940s small-town setting, but younger viewers far removed from that time. Continue Reading →

Little Nemo is a property rife for play. The dream world of Slumberland is vast, its rules deliberately obtuse — it’s a wonderland full of slippery dream logic where its only limit is a child’s imagination. That Netflix’s spin on the 100-year-old tale should feel so dull and bloated is only the beginning of its problems. Continue Reading →

Fleishman Is in Trouble, the adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, and Lizzy Caplan, has a first-act problem. Or rather, a first-episode problem. Continue Reading →

Trust is a fundamental aspect of any relationship. Whether it’s a friend, co-worker, or relative, developing trust in each other is what can make a beautiful bond flourish. But trusting someone is also giving them the ability to hurt us, leaving us always with the possibility of trusting the wrong person, and suffering because of it. Such is the case of Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse, a film based on the real-life case of serial killer Charles Cullen. The overall tone of the movie is as gray as the dull hospital rooms in which the story takes place, taking away the energy from what would otherwise be a stellar thriller. Continue Reading →

The Inspection, the narrative feature debut of writer-director Elegance Bratton, aims to be a fictionalized treatment of Bratton’s own real-life experiences as a young gay Black man attempting to turn his life around by, of all things, joining the Marines. As dramatic hooks go, that’s a compelling one, but the finished film seems strangely unwilling to grapple with it in any meaningful way. Instead, what could have been a unique, deeply personal narrative is eventually reduced to a well-meaning but largely undistinguished military melodrama that is ultimately too familiar for its own good.  Continue Reading →

For most people contemplating going to see She Said, the screen adaptation of the 2019 best-seller by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey chronicling their ground-breaking investigation of Harvey Weinstein, three questions may come to mind. How graphic is the film going to be regarding the crimes he perpetuated over the years against hundreds of women unfortunate enough to cross his path? How will it handle the representation of the well-known personalities who were critical elements of the story, ranging from Weinstein himself to the famous actresses who were among his victims? Finally, as films chronicling journalists as they break hugely important stories go, how does it stack up against the likes of All the President’s Men, still the gold standard of the genre, or more recent examples like Spotlight or The Post? Continue Reading →