Category: Orson Reviews

If you work crossword puzzles, you get used to certain words that get used over and over because they combine well with the words that intersect with them.  For instance, the word “ape.”  Now, there’s nothing wrong with “ape” when you define it as “Chimp, e.g.” or “Orang or Gibbon.”

Biopics — biographical movies — are devilishly hard to do well. Especially when everybody knows the subject of the movie.Then, if you really want to practically guarantee a botched job, you do a biopic of a singer.  Then your lead actor not only has to nail the appearance and manner of the subject, he also has to singlike him.  (Or you try to lip-sync the recordings you have of the real person, which always looks kind of awful.)

Here’s why screenwriters should do whatever they can to work in television instead of movies.The movie Booksmartlooks like a great high school comedy. Filthy language, lots of sexual innuendo and teasing, probably, because that’s where things are going in that genre, especially when it’s about empowering women, but it’s still a movie that I plan to see.

Since, judging from the hype, The Avengers: Endgame is not just the only new movie in the world this weekend, it may turn out to be the only movie ever made, I would like to mention that my wife and I went to see the sole movie that didn’t look awful (that we hadn’t already seen) and to our surprise, we both enjoyed Shazam inordinately.