Russell Miller 
Google a definition of the word reality, and you’ll get #1 – “the world or state of things as they actually exist” and #2 – “the state or quality of having existence or substance.” But what makes something real? What actually exists? What percentage of people have to agree something is reality for it to be so? …
Everybody loves a good monster movie. From the dawn of cinema, the unknown creatures of the underwater realm, dark woods, forests, and otherwise uncharted areas that might care to pay us a visit in the nighttime hours have long been the source of many a child’s lost hours of sleep. …
Every so often, a movie comes along that is so unique, original, and sometimes wildly bizarre that they’re almost indescribable; there’s not much out there to compare them to. For instance, trying to explain to someone what A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once is like or even the Noah Baumbach film White Noise on Netflix, they’re …
Isaac Asimov was a Russian science fiction writer who died in the early 1990s. He wrote extensively about the future and discussed AI and robots in many of his stories. Much of his work was written before our modern world of robot vacuum cleaners and self-driving cars, but much of Asimov’s …
Most of us can remember what it was like to be in grade school. There was always some Tommy likes Sally type of drama between pubescent boys and girls, but rarely were there incidents of any note that got the whole school on high alert. Most of those types of …
When it comes to paintings and art, I’m not a huge connoisseur. I can walk through an art gallery and appreciate most pieces from a technical level, but as far as anything I would purchase and own for my own enjoyment, I’m pretty indifferent to most things. A new animated …
The original Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory movie from 1971 was a bit of an anomaly. Sometimes, when a film’s elements come together in just the right time and place, it is something akin to lightning striking. This process cannot be predicted, duplicated, or repeated, at least not easily. The …
For some time, popular toys and games from kids’ childhoods from the 1970s and 80s have become popular movie topics. From Transformers and G.I Joe to Battleship and The Lego Movie, movie studios have been on their heels to find source material for new movie projects for the past few decades. While the Barbie doll had appeared …
Night Swim, a horror movie from director Bryce McGuire starring Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, and Amélie Hoeferle, is the newest release from Blumhouse and Atomic Monster. Based on a four-minute short film, the film is about when “everything you fear is under the surface.” When a movie begins, and the production company logos pop up …
If you were to do a Family Feud-style survey and ask a hundred people who the greatest movie director of all time is, you undoubtedly would get Alfred Hitchcock’s name on the board. Steven Spielberg would be up there, possibly even Stanley Kubrick as well. I cannot say where he would place, but without much doubt, Martin …
Before I begin this review of Anyone But You, I must include the full disclosure that I am a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic by nature. There’s always a soft spot in my heart for romantic comedies. I’m not over the moon for all of them, but I tend to enjoy them a …
J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) is the focal point of the new film Oppenheimer from writer and director Christopher Nolan. It is the story of the top mind behind the Manhattan Project, known as “the father of the atomic bomb.” Most everyone knows the Manhattan Project was an operation the United States …
Rugby isn’t a sport we get much of here in America, but it’s one of the primary sports people enjoy watching in other countries. In the early 1970s, a group of rugby players from Uruguay boarded a plane from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, for a rugby match. In the …
Wim Wenders is a German writer, director, and producer who has been making movies and short films since the late 1960s. After a quiet decade, Wenders is out with a new film, Perfect Days. Wenders really hit a stride in the 1980s. In 1984, he made a movie that many consider among the greatest arthouse films …
The Iron Claw, written and directed by Sean Durkin, is the newest release from A24. It covers the Von Erich family’s rise to wrestling fame and all the subsequent heartbreak and suffering that plagued them. When it comes to curses, you can usually define them as bad luck or evil that …
The Taste of Things (or La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) is a new French-language film by director Trần Anh Hùng and distributed by IFC Films in the US. France has submitted it for the best International Feature at the Academy Awards, and it recently made the Oscars shortlist. For myself, I love a great cooking …
Since the induction of moving pictures on a big screen, people have lined up to watch other people fall in love. The romantic relationship depictions between two people, sometimes with some humor thrown in for good measure, have brought people venturing to the movies for the chance to fall in …
The final entry into The Lord of the Rings franchise, The Return Of The King, is arguably not only the greatest conclusion to a trilogy but also one of the greatest films ever made. Yet, when it comes to film trilogies, for there even to be a third film means the massive …
Each spring in the Mediterranean seaside town of Cannes, France, filmmakers from all over the world gather to explore and discover new films at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. When the film festival ends, they award the top film with a prize called the Palme d’Or. Starting in 2019 with the film Parasite, NEON …
A new piece of cinema from writer/director Raven Jackson, All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt is very much a cinematic work of art. When it comes to art and cinema, tastes will vary as widely and diversely as there are people on the planet. It can be a situation where one man’s trash …