Love Comes in Pairs at ‘The Wedding Banquet’
It’s always a challenge to remake a classic film like Ang Lee’s 1993 rom-com, The Wedding Banquet. But it helps to have the original writer on board, along with Lee’s blessing. Writer-director Andrew Ahn was up for the challenge with James Schamus, who wrote the original screenplay and the 2025 reimagining of The Wedding Banquet with his director. The new version stars Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang and South Korean film...
Late Night and Uptight on ‘Hacks’ as Deborah Vance Gets Her Dream TV Job
There is Jimmy. And Jimmy. Seth and Steven. And if the world of Hacks were real, Deborah Vance would also be a member of that elite club of the late-night television hosts. As Season 4 begins on Max, Jean Smart’s Vance has achieved her life-long dream of hosting a network late-night TV show after decades of performing in Las Vegas and on stages around the world. Not to mention the success she’s had with her own line of merchandise on...
‘Freaky Tales’ Flashes Back to Oakland 1987
Take some punk rock, some rap, the NBA playoffs and the story of a retired hitman played by Pedro Pascal, mix it all up into four intertwined stories– three based on actual facts – and you get Freaky Tales, an ode to the Bay Area city set in May of 1987. Fresh off their stint on Captain Marvel, along with several revered indie films including Half Nelson, it’s the latest from the writer-director team of Ryan Fleck and Anna...
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Final Season: The Revolution is Here
It’s been it’s been two and half years since we last saw Elisabeth Moss’ June trying to keep her family safe from the totalitarian state of Gilead and its violent supporters in Toronto, and now the sixth and final season of The Handmaid’s Tale is upon us. And yes, rage, resistance and revolution are brewing. The series, based on Margaret Atwell’s best-selling novel first premiered in April 2017 and featured June, then known as Offred,...
The Twisted Tale of ‘Death of a Unicorn’
Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega as Elliot and Ridley Kintner make for an unusual father-daughter duo. You sense that immediately in the opening scenes of A24’s Death of a Unicorn, As they drive up a deserted mountainous road, there’s bickering and tension, and then inattention that shapes the rest of this rather lame horror-comedy tale. Suddenly, their car hits a horse-like animal on the road, which turns out to be a unicorn, and both have...