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Josh and Benny Safdie have been making low budget films in New York for over ten years, mostly in and around Queens and Manhattan. They’ve been known to just use random people on the streets as their actors. In 2014, they released a movie based on a book written by Arielle Holmes, about her real life as a homeless heroin addict entitled Heaven Knows What. They cast Arielle herself to play the lead. It’s a fantastic film this critic highly recommends, however this piece…

I was looking for something to watch, and nothing was really popping for me, so I went over to Prime and what right on the first page was Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, because I recently put it on my watchlist when I was reminded that I had planned on seeing it in 2019 and then completely forgot about it! So, perfect timing.

For me, Fiddler on the Roof is Zero Mostel. I even saw him play Tevye…

Matt (Ed Helms) is a 45 year old single man who knows one thing for certain, that he wants to be a father. So what do you do when you have the means and the desire, but no partner? You find yourself a donor egg and a gestational surrogate, that’s what you do.

Anna (Patti Harrison) is a 26 year old single woman who…

After the release of In Bruges in 2008, Martin Mcdonagh had a couple of scripts written and ready to go, but decided to take a couple years off to travel. He already had one in mind, and was planning on making his screenplay Seven Psychopaths into his next film. Production on Seven Psychopaths started sometime in early to mid 2011, and was released in North America on October 12th, 2012. The film stars Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, and Tom Waits.

Colin Farrell plays Marty, a screenwriter trying to finish, or even start his script entitled Seven Psychopaths. One might wonder if Marty…

Next week, we celebrate the re-opening of our Secret Movie Club Theater after 15 months of Covid shutdown with a 35mm screening of Steven Spielberg’s 1971 debut feature film Duel.

Before anyone takes us on with the totally valid point that Duel was originally a 75 minute made for TV movie and was only later expanded by 15 minutes to a feature film (released abroad), this Programmer humbly submits that for all intents and purposes, it really should be considered a feature film.

It’s extremely special to this Programmer because it has all the hallmarks…

Now that the movie theaters are opening again, and I’m vaccinated and feel comfortable going, they’re kind of scrambling a little for actual movies to put in the theaters!

So there are re-releases going on, and this week they were kind enough to re-release Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a movie I loved when it first came out, but I had forgotten just how much. I’d say this is a nearly perfect…

"Maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in Bruges"

Before venturing into film, Martin McDonagh began his career as a playwright. His plays being described as humorous, tragic, and sometimes downright disturbing. Feeling like theater lacked the edge he was really looking for, Martin decided to dip his toes into filmmaking with a short film entitled Six Shooter, which ended up winning an academy award. After it's success, Focus Features agreed to produce a feature film based on McDonagh's screenplay, to be directed by himself called In Bruges.

After a job goes south…

To say that this Programmer has had a conflicted relationship with Quentin Tarantino’s body of work would be an understatement.

On one hand, every Tarantino movie is an exciting event and ALL of his movies have delivered on some and on occasion ALL levels. His love of cinema is monumental and inspiring. His commitment to bat for the fences EACH and EVERY time he makes a movie is THE model most moviemakers should aspire to.

Beyond that, Quentin Tarantino just makes good movies. Period. Full stop. And his evident sharp intelligence in understanding how to guide his career may be one of the best the movie industry has ever seen.

On the other hand, this Programmer occasionally wonders if maybe Tarantino’s movies are TOO MUCH about movies. Too self-aware.

Yet all this being acknowledged as a means of full (or too much) disclosure, there are three Tarantinos this Programmer loves and thinks are truly great: Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.

And after having seen them all again this past month, it is Jackie Brown which still feels like…

Centered around LaKeith Stanfield’s incredibly empathetic performance as Cassius Green, a man caught in a battle between success and compromise, Sorry to Bother You is a remarkably consistent first film (!) from writer / director, Boots Riley. That’s been said many times about this movie but it bears repeating. It’s extremely rare for something with this level of confidence in its execution to appear under any circumstance, much less as a debut. Not to diminish his efforts as a filmmaker at all, but I wonder if the genre characteristics inherent to absurdity are best suited to a non-traditionalist’s approach. Does relative inexperience (considered as a positive) stop a creator from second-guessing their most unconventional ideas. . .

This is another installment of my Versus series. My first one was where I compared the original and rebooted versions of Saved by the Bell. For this piece, I am going to be reviewing The Suite Life of Karan and Kabir to see how it reflects the original (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody).

Zack and Cody are two twin boys who live in the Tipton Hotel and create chaos every episode. Karan and Kabir is the Indian adaptation…