J.T. Kolness ~ Film, Television, Awards Discussion and Reviews

Coogan & Reilly Perfectly Recapture Laurel & Hardy By J.T. Kolness Laurel and Hardy, the classic comedians of the early twentieth century, made their charming mark on Hollywood and granting audiences with a one-in-a-million dual pairing of the dainty goof Stan Laurel and the large toe-tapping Oliver Hardy. Beyond Laurel and Hardy, there haven't been many comic duos outside Abbot and Costello, that really had the staying power of these two. Even in the film, as their careers seem to deteriorate and audiences become disinterested in the same-old shtick, it's clear that these two were blissfully unaware of how their legacy would continue to crack smiles long after their deaths. Stan & Ollie , directed by John S. Baird, is a humble, pleasant ride through the last tour of their career, and a reminder of the simplicity of old-time Hollywood where these two could do a song and dance and light up an entire theatre. While the goofy eccentricity of Laurel & Hardy (

Cornish Finds Some Magic In Traditional "King" Tale By J. T. Kolness It's hard to believe Joe Cornish only releasing his second directorial feature, given it's been eight years since his first and previous breakout midnight-madness smash Attack the Block . Cornish has long worked with filmmaker Edgar Wright and even collaborated with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson with the script to 2011's T he Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn , also eight years ago. Cornish seemed like he was truly planting his flag in the industry, but so much time had passed until now with not any much to his credit other than helping craft the screenplay of Ant-Man (2015) with Edgar Wright... years before the script was reworked by Paul Rudd and Adam McKay. So why has this talented filmmaker been such a recluse? Perhaps he was just waiting for the right project or maybe he just felt like hibernating. Somehow, things managed to come together for Cornish,

REVIEW: "Shoplifters" Challenges The Definition of Family by J.T. Kolness From the soft and tender direction of Hirokazu Koreeda comes Shoplifters , a heartfelt story about the bonds of family: what can tear them apart, and what, like the grandma Hatsue's (Kirin Kiki) fabric needle can stitch them back together again. Family relations tension, secrets are withheld for long periods of time, and these people we grow to care about try desperately hard to hide aspects of their past that haunt them. There is something so innocent and sweet about this story that even when the most damning reveals creep their way into the story, when characters open up and speak honestly with one another, it's impossible to not still feel sympathy. Koreeda lets us get to know the sweet side of these people for such an extended amount of time in the most honest and understandable ways, that even when watching them commit their thefts, it's clearly wrong, but it's at least sati

The Oscars: Where There Is Room For More Than One Hysterical Queen A Breakdown of the Academy Award nominations and Assessment of What's Winning What By J.T. Kolness See what I did there? It's a reference to the "hysterical queen" line in Bohemian Rhapsody and a reference to Olivia Colman in The Favourite . It literally took me five whole minutes to come up with that headline and if you don't like it, piss off.  Without getting too ahead of myself, I'm just gonna go down the list category by category, offer my thoughts, and prognosticate at this point what's got the best chance at taking home that gold naked man. I won't be including the shorts on this list because typically when making my winner predictions, I usually just look up pundit predictions the night before the ceremony. I have no idea what any of these are except for Bao . Wasn't Bao great? Bao wins. Moving along... BEST FOREIGN FILM Capernaum (Lebanom) Cold

REVIEW: Kidman Grits Her Teeth and We Grip Our Armrests in "Destroyer" by J.T. Kolness It's no secret that Nicole Kidman is a force to be reckoned with. She's a four-time Oscar nominee and winner (and a whopping thirteen-time Golden Globe nominee) and easily one of our greatest and most recognizable movie actresses. We shouldn't be surprised to see her take a role like this and knock it out of the park. In fact, we should be numb to her talents by now. And yet, within the first few minutes of Karyn Kusama's Destroyer, we are back to being transfixed by Kidman's raw talent. I could write a novel about how good Kidman is in this film and how much weight is granted to this story by her presence, but I have to keep this review a decent length, so allow me to dedicate the next paragraph to Nicole Kidman. Kidman plays the role of a hard-boiled detective on the hunt for a gang leader Silas (Toby Kebbell) she knew in her past that has reemerged and she

REVIEW: Shyamalan Plays With His Action Figures in Front of Us And We Try to Follow Along in trilogy-closing "Glass" by J.T. Kolness Be careful what you wish for, Unbreakable die-hards. Fans of the original Unbreakable by writer-director (and infamous trickster) M. Night Shyamalan are in for a roller-coaster ride of conflicted opinions as Shyamalan grabs his action figures he locked away in a toy chest 19 years ago and spins out a brand new tale as a conclusion to a trilogy we were unaware even existed until the end credits of Shyamalan's last film Split . That film gained worldwide audience attention, grossing almost $300 million on a $5 million budget. The fact that (spoiler) it secretly was tied to Shyamalan's under-appreciated superhero mystery from 2000 was just icing on the cake for fans of the director's early work. Now we are blessed and cursed with Glass, the melding of two movies and a long awaited return for the character of hero David Dunn/The

I'm not going to begin this first blog with an introductory post. I have no time for that and neither do you. So, cutting to the chase, we just had an entire year's worth of films that require my thoughts and I saw everything but The Wife . That's not my fault, that's The Wife' s fault. Come on, Sony Pictures Classics, you could have released The Wife  in 4,000+ screens in IMAX 3D and you chose not to, meaning I had to wait for a small window of time for it to screen at my nearby theatre for a week only for me to have car troubles that prevented me from going. My bad, movie. And yet, Glenn Close is still winning major televised awards and good for her. The last time a major acting Oscar contender had a film release this small to still be a threat at an Oscar win was Julianne Moore in Still Alice , which was a release so limited, I had to watch an illegal Oscar screener download on my on-its-last-breath dying 2005 Macbook. Here's some advice, SPC, when your film