The opening shot is a film’s calling card, an image of introduction. The best of them shape, inform, and herald the tone for what lies ahead. So instead of wasting an audience’s time with an …

Who said you can’t keep a good gal down? Not Shelley Winters. As sure as bummer follows Winters, we dug up a trio of watery grave ballets: two worth owning, one worth stoning. A Place …

“There are millions of Jewish guys you could have chosen,” barista Ronit (Rebecca Esmeralda Telhami) admonishes her Israeli employer Sarah (Sivan Kerchner), “Are you that desperate? With an Arab?” Sarah’s difficulty in answering the question …

What’s the best thing about Midsommar? It allows me to introduce to you a trio of similarly-themed (and infinitely superior) nightmarish epics directed by a true Master of Horror, Larry Cohen. It’s Alive (1974) The …

He may be this year's emerging superstar, but Forky arrived on the scene long before Toyota began cranking out hybrids. Half-fork, half-spoon, and all-heart, his is a presence so large, they might just as well …

There’s no mention of Robert Altman’s breathtakingly grimy McCabe and Mrs. Miller in Nick Broomfield’s (Lily Tomlin, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, Whitney: Can I Be Me) latest celebrity biodoc, Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love. …

What streaming service offers thousands of free and legal movies and television shows? Here to entice are a trio of offerings currently available on Tubi TV. You Bet Your Life (1950) It was the quip …

A trio of crocodilian companions to help celebrate the opening of (or act as an antidote to) Crawl. Alligator (1980) Screenwriter John Sayles and director Lewis Teague drew from what they learned while working together …

Oura Culpa! Mr. Lickona took a vacation and this reporter missed the screening of the much-anticipated Midsommar. Once I ran to advance screenings; now I run from them. Why? Because I would much rather try …

The old man was never one for fireworks. It had something to do with his surviving the Invasion of Normandy. Friends and relatives would take me to see displays of fire-flowers (as my maternal grandpa …

From director and star Sidney Poitier comes an unlikely trilogy of comedies. Uptown Saturday Night (1974) An inexplicably tender, untroubled exchange between Steve (Sidney Poitier) and his wife Sarah (Rosalind Cash) prefaces a raucous boy’s …

Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés found the inspiration behind his notorious “Peace Project” the day his flight home from a conference on the history of violent behavior was interrupted by a hijacking. Art imitates life, and …

Authors and their muses are the subjects of this week’s binge-watch. J.T. Leroy (2018) Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy was a manufactured commodity, the wispy offspring of a prostitute mother that writer Laura Albert (Laura Dern) bamboozled …

When the Lord said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” He wasn’t referring to American Woman’s Deb Callahan (Sienna Miller). Deb can’t remove the butt from between her lips long enough to cuddle with …

Who scares you, baby? Give a lick about this Telly Savalas trio of terror. Lisa and the Devil (1973) Giallo: a splashy ‘70s subgenre of Italian horror with soft, overlit nightscapes filmed in garish Eastman …

The three o’clock bell sounded the close of business day for most grade-schoolers. Not Scooter. While others were off in a field hitting balls with sticks or in the alley playing pinners, from ages nine …

A cinematic counterpart to word association, this trio of films came to mind spontaneously and without reflection while watching The Garden Store trilogy. Cookoo Cavaliers (1940) Hey, Jan Hřebejk — steal from the Stooges and …

Several anti-death penalty features were fated to follow in the wake of Dead Man Standing (most notably The Green Mile), but in most instances, stories of wrongfully-accused lifers punching the clock on death row are …

Things your ever-diligent physical media hound sleuthed out while making the rounds of the South Bay region. Dark Blue (2002) We Lend More Inc. had a copy with my name on it. In the days …

What’s more shocking than a senior level VP at a New Jersey hedge fund finding herself smack dab in the middle of a weeklong celebration of the distinctively raunchy hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse? …

According to Mae West, she was the first liberated woman. “No guy was going to get the best of me,” she purred. “That’s what I wrote all my scripts about.” And what other actress can …

A female, powerfully outspoken African-American civil rights activist convinced the winner of the 1971 Ku Klux Klan award for Exalted Cyclops of the Year (aka the Oscars of hate) to vote in favor of desegregation. …

A trio of X-rated documentaries that definitely qualify as your grandparent’s kind of porn. You’re going to have to work to find copies, but they’re worth it. Mondo Topless (1966) “Situated on precipitous peaks above …

Bin (Fan Liao) cradled Qiao’s (Tao Zhao) left palm in his, certain it was the same hand she used to squeeze off the shot that saved his life. Some romantic is he. The poor dumb …

Here are three from 2010. It was a very good year. Stream them all on Amazon. Easy A (2010) There is no such thing as an authority figure in a John Hughes film, only buffoons …

Hollywood is run by Jews, or so the age old anti-semitic trope would lead one to believe. If that’s the case, would someone please explain how it is that Mel Gibson continues to find work …

Standing on tiptoes, the devil on my shoulder took to jabbing a pitchfork in my ear. “Wanna have a little fun?” he chortled. “Try selling your readers — both of them — on The Wedding …

This week, we’ve got something old, something new, and something that squeaks in the dark. The Unknown (1927) A crook on the lam (Lon Chaney) finds refuge as a circus novelty act, binding his limbs …

It was Hollywood’s biggest night, and the wonky pan-and-zoom-in on the Dolby Theatre that opened the show looked like something out of a network cop drama from the ‘70s. Inside, the joint was rocking out …

Birds sing, elephants dance, and monkeys paint, but only humans turn those activities into art. And only humans evince a bottomless hunger for it: hence the endless parade of pictures on Instagram, stories on Netflix, …

While on the lookout for three films that dealt with the importance of borders (or lack thereof), I was sidetracked by other forms of torture. Dodge City (1939) The indolent Mookie tossed a trash can …

When festival coordinator Tobias Queck lamented the high cost of renting an auditorium for the German Currents Film Festival, I suggested that he look into the more reasonably priced venue. What was once a yearly …

This week’s three-course buffet comes with a cartoon, a short, and a feature guaranteed to get the viewer all jazzed up. — Scott Marks Three Little Bops (1957) Composer and trumpeter Shorty Rogers provides the …

Thanksgiving comes early this week at the Ken when a pair of Jackie Chan kung-fu cop comedies hold what appear to be their San Diego premiers. There are no signs of either film being reviewed …

Tired of all the political spiel teeming from the TV? Not thrilled at the prospect of squandering your entertainment dollars on more of the same at the local multiplex? My first two releases logged for …

This week, I’m playing catch-up with a string of recent and new releases that didn’t make deadline. — Scott Marks The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) It’s any portmanteau in a storm when Joel and …

A few months back, I put out feelers to all of the major theatre chains in San Diego, hoping that one of them would have the good taste (and decency) to book the long-awaited last …

This week’s selections share two commonalities: all were lounging on my hard drive and none were ever reviewed in these pages. Offside (2006) After the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran, women were not …

For those too cheap to buy a ticket, but eager to learn about an umbrella-powered nanny, radioactive spider bites, and how to make money by illegally transporting drugs across state lines, we offer these three …

Forty-seven years in the director’s chair with almost forty films to show for it, and thank God that Clint Eastwood’s not done yet. Some pictures aren’t as good as others, to be sure, but there’s …

Celebrate Woody Allen’s 83rd birthday with a trio of early, funny movies What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) My first Woody. At fourteen, a sickbed viewing induced enough laughter to swat the flu bug right out …

A bucketful of soap suds splashes across a row of tiles, transforming a square of garage floor into a mirror awash with the reflection of an airplane hovering in the sky above. The long take …

Directed by one half of the Farrelly Brothers, Green Book isn’t content to simply smell like a Driving Miss Daisy. Yes, it’s a feel-good charmer poised to rake in greenbacks and Oscar gold. No, that …

This week’s @Home picks are a trio of non-musicals all based on popular songs. Alice’s Restaurant (1969) Arlo Guthrie’s ​17-plus-minute folk protest canticle is brought to the screen with sweet-sounding resonance by Arthur Penn (Bonnie …

Lovers of unrequited love, rejoice. There is enough handwritten romantic communication exchanged in Shunji Iwai’s deceptively uncomplicated romance Last Letter to fill a small post office branch. And no junk mail! Given that he has …

At age 19, the Asian Film Festival shows no sign of slowing down. If anything, this could be the strongest lineup artistic director Brian Hu has assembled in many a year. What follows are a …

Here's more of my talk with Peter Bogdanovich. From Buster Keaton the subject shifts to what chance, if any, we have of ever seeing Jerry Lewis' notorious concentration camp clown picture, his thoughts on The …

We celebrate the blu-ray release of Mandy and look back on a pair of game-changing middle-period Nicolas Cage pictures guaranteed to give your eyeballs a workout. Mandy (2018) Lumberjack boy (Cage) meets artistically-inclined girl (Andrea …

Is it me, or has Landmark’s Ken Cinema become San Diego’s big screen answer to the A&E Biography channel? Truth be told, my adulation over Pick of the Litter was guided more by a love …

Streaming service Kanopy has teamed with the Goethe Institute to sponsor 48 films for the Wunderbar: A Celebration of German Films project. Visit kanopy.com/goethe throughout the month of October to watch any of the films …