By Liz Lopez Rating: B “El Chicano” premiered during the opening weekend of the Los Angeles Film Festival in September of last year, followed by a screening in the Marquee Features category of the Austin Film Festival. If you missed it at the one – time screening in Austin last October, here is your chance… Continue reading Review and Interview: AFF’s “El Chicano” opens Theatrically featuring Raul Castillo in the Lead
Category: Reviews
Review: SUNSET
By Mark Saldana Rating: 2.5 (Out of 4 Stars) From writer/director László Nemes, the filmmaker who made the critically acclaimed of Saul, comes a different type of story that follows a female protagonist during an era of much prejudice and sexism. The appropriately titled Sunset is a historical drama that entails a lost woman’s quest… Continue reading Review: SUNSET
Review: AVENGERS: ENDGAME
By Mark Saldana Rating: 4 (Out of 4 Stars) After eleven years and twenty-one movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe reaches a major turning point with Avengers: Endgame. Not only does the film serve as an end to the Thanos/Infinity Stones story arc, it also serves as a bridge to new adventures ahead. I won’t get… Continue reading Review: AVENGERS: ENDGAME
SXSW 2019 Review: “The Curse of La Llorona” World Premieres at SXSW and in Theaters Now
By Liz Lopez Rating: B-/C+ The horror film “The Curse of La Llorona” premiered at SXSW on Friday, March 15th and many in the audience seemed unnerved. As for me, not so much. I have heard (and read) about the familiar legend, La Llorona, in Latin American (Mexico and South America) folklore, over the past few… Continue reading SXSW 2019 Review: “The Curse of La Llorona” World Premieres at SXSW and in Theaters Now
Review: THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA
By Mark Saldana Rating: 2.5 (Out of 4 Stars) Even though this latest installment in The Conjuring Universe premiered at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, I simply wasn’t quite that interested in the film to attend the festival screening. It was just a gut feeling, but at the time, I felt that this movie would… Continue reading Review: THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA
Review: PENGUINS
By Mark Saldana Rating: 3.5 (Out of 4 Stars) From Disneynature comes another gorgeously shot documentary which showcases the life and trials of a particular species. The subject, this time, is a family of Adélie penguins as they go through their regular seasonal routines. This actually proves to be much more exciting than it sounds.… Continue reading Review: PENGUINS
Review: THE LAST
By Mark Saldana Rating: 3.5 (Out of 4 Stars) Currently playing in New York at the Angelika Film Center & CMX, and opening on April 26 in Los Angeles, is the new bold and provocative film by writer/director Jeff Lipsky. In 2015, I first discovered the work of Jeff Lipsky when a studio representative reached… Continue reading Review: THE LAST
SXSW 2019 Review: PET SEMATARY
By Mark Saldana Rating: 3 (Out of 4 Stars) At what was probably way too young an age, I read Stephen King’s horror novel Pet Sematary and was definitely spooked. King’s fresh spin on “the living dead” gave me chills and frights that probably kept me awake on some nights. I was also rather taken… Continue reading SXSW 2019 Review: PET SEMATARY
Film Review: Based on true events, “The Best of Enemies” Shows Changes in 1970s Durham
By Liz Lopez Rating: B+ First-time feature filmmaker Robin Bissell wrote the script inspired by “The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South” written by Osha Gray Davidson. Daily life in the mid-twentieth-century South was still not an easy time in North Carolina when the KKK still ran their operations very publicly.
Review: SHAZAM!
By Mark Saldana Rating: 3.5 (Out of 4 Stars) After receiving some mixed or negative critical responses with some of their recent DC films, it seems like Warner Bros. Studios has been working hard to salvage what they can from the DC Extended Universe. They did manage a big win with Wonder Woman, and achieved… Continue reading Review: SHAZAM!