Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  I have mixed feelings about including the Hollywood biopic, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody in this series. Kasi Lemmons ( Eve’s Bayou, Harriet ) directed it, but the film comes across as a further effort to milk the legacy of the titular singer, who in her prime achieved seven consecutive Billboard Number Ones, from ‘Saving All My Love for You’ in 1985 to ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go?’ in 1988, as well as an attempt to let some of those who contributed to her decline off the hook. The film charts Whitney’s rise and fall and is advertised as ‘from the writer of Bohemian Rhapsody ’, Anthony McCarten, as if that was somehow a selling point. McCarten is also listed as a producer. Modestly budgeted at $45 million, with British actress Naomi Ackie convincingly lip-synching and emoting as Whitney, the film’s box office has been tempered by adverse weather conditions in the United States, not to mention poor-to-indifferent reviews. The film climaxes with a flashback to an ic...

  Pictured : 'You like the form. You don't like the content.' Agnes ( Eva Victor ) teaching Vladimir Nabokov's taboo-busting novel 'Lolita' in a scene from the film, ' Sorry, Baby ', written and directed by Eva Victor . Still courtesy of A24 (US) / Picturehouse Entertainment (UK)  Lately, people wishing to display virtue have been pictured holding cats. You have to feel sorry for the cats. They have no idea of the purpose into which they have been co-opted. Why am I being held so high? Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, has been pictured with a cat, with the intention of mocking the tyrant President Trump - currently Newsom’s full-time job. On the poster of her acclaimed film, Sorry, Baby , the writer-director-actor Eva Victor holds a cat she has liberated from houselessness in an apologetic way. ‘I’m sorry, cat,’ her character, Agnes, seems to say, ‘but I need you.’ People say things to cats that they wouldn’t say to a human being but having place...

  Pictured : Tech billionaire Slater King ( Channing Tatum ) admires his guest Frida ( Naomi Ackie ) in a scene from the luxury island thriller, ' Blink Twice ', co-written and directed by  Zoë Kravitz . Still courtesy of MGM-Amazon Studios (US) / Warner Bros. (UK) What is the deal with a private island? Does someone even have the right to sell an entire landmass? How much of the surrounding ocean count as the owner’s waters, for fishing and such? Don’t they have an obligation to provide basic services, not just for guests but their staff as well? These were some of the questions that occurred to me after watching Blink Twice , an American takedown of toxic masculinity written (with E.T. Feigenbaum) and directed by actress-turned-director Zoë Kravitz. However, these are not the questions that interest her. Kravitz focusses on one: how can men get away with abusing women? She looks at what gives them licence, the enablers. Wealth is one. Bullied women living their worst life...