The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It 

In 1981, the Warrens (Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson) try to help a young man (Ruairi O’Connor) who’s been charged with murder; they know that he’s possessed by a demon. The…

Hiroshima Mon Amour: Prisoners of War

Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada. Photo: Argos Films Another one of those classics that I wasn’t quite prepared for when I was studying film, but which had a much more…

Yung Lean: In My Head 

A documentary from music journalist and filmmaker Henrik Burman in the vein of Avicii: True Stories (2017), which also depicted a Swedish talent who found success abroad but came to…

Wonder Woman 1984 

In 1984, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) and a dorky new geologist (Kristen Wiig) at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. come across a mysterious item that grants its owner a wish.…

Nomadland: Life of a Vandweller

Frances McDormand. Photo: Searchlight Pictures Watching this movie reminded me of a younger relative of mine. I haven’t met him for many years; he’s spent most of his time on…

Blue Velvet: Quite an Earful

Kyle MacLachlan and Isabella Rossellini. Photo: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group In his annual movie guide, Leonard Maltin expresses amazement at how Blue Velvet was a critically lauded film. Roger Ebert wrote about…

Pretty Woman

Depressed corporate raider Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) hooks up with a Hollywood Boulevard prostitute (Julia Roberts) and realizes she’s a human being. An enormous box-office hit at the time, this…

Freaky Friday 

Teenager Annabel (Jodie Foster) and her mother (Barbara Harris) magically switch bodies and try to deal with each other’s challenges. When Mary Rodgers wrote her novel, the concept of characters…

Best Years of Our Lives: Coming Home

Myrna Loy and Fredric March. Photo: RKO The premiere of The Best Years of Our Lives seemed to hit America like a ton of bricks. Coming the year after the…

The Last Adventure 

Jimmy Mattsson (Göran Stangertz) abruptly ends his military service and is hired as a high-school teacher… but sleeping with one of the 16-year-old students (Ann Zacharias) causes a problem. One…