(left to right): Gwylim Lee, Joseph Mazzello, and Rami Malek attending the early screening of Bohemian Rhapsody at the Cosford Cinema
Thanks to the crew at the Bill Cosford Cinema, I was able to watch the first Miami screening of Brian Singer’s Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) a month before release, with a huge, enthusiastic crowd. We were additionally treated to a brief word introducing the film from stars Rami Malek, Gwilym Lee, and Joseph Mazello, who championed Queen as the band who makes outcasts feel at home. As for the film itself, Bohemian Rhapsody tells the story of Queen and their front man, Freddie Mercury, with great accuracy, delivering moving performances and the energy fitting of a performer like Freddie.
As the occasionally bland “Oscar-Bait” movies start to come in season, it’s always a surprising delight to get a film like Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, A Star Is Born (2018). The third remake of the 1937 film of the same name, Bradley Cooper’s spin on the tale manages to deliver a fast-paced story on the highs and lows of romance and fame, with good music and great performances to boot.
It’s easy to forget the power a visual medium like film can have when an audience is presented with little story, but packs in interesting visuals. Our friends at Coral Gables Art Cinema are screening an excellent example of such a movie in showing Tom Tykwer’s German thriller film Run Lola Run (1998). Run Lola Run is a work that, while clearly a product of the MTV era, is visually stylish in all the right ways, delivering a heart-racing thriller through its fast-paced editing and flashy presentation.
A film that deserves its legendary status, few praises can be poured on Roman Polanksi’s Chinatown (1974) that haven’t been said before. Thanks to some upcoming screenings arranged by our friends at the Coral Gables Art Cinema, I got the chance to sit down and watch Chinatown again, and I can say with confidence that I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time, if not more. Chinatown is a superb example of the best of a genre, and a story that should be fully enjoyed on the big screen by fans of noir mysteries.
The tragedy of comedy films is that very few hold up over the years. In many cases, a comedy can fall into the abyss of awkward silences, and stilted, forced laughs. Thankfully, such a fate hasn’t come over Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007). With Coral Gables Art Cinema screening the film later this month, now was a good time for me to experience the film. I can comfortably say that as the second entry in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy, Hot Fuzz sits comfortably between Shaun of the Dead (2004) and The World’s End (2013) as one of the great comedy films produced in the last few years.
I hope you’re scared by bad CGI, because this is about as good as scares get with Truth or Dare
When I first saw the trailer for Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare (2018), I was excited at the prospect of a horror film with a premise so laughably dumb that some sick enjoyment could be taken from it. Unfortunately, Truth or Dare is yet another embarrassing, pandering, and tone-deaf horror flick, suffering from mediocre characters, inconsistent logic, and a general lack of originality.
Among fans of superhero movies, few films garner as much adoration as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. Even in a decade where theaters and box-offices alike have been dominated by a rejuvenated interest in superhero stories, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone that doesn’t hold the original Spider-Man movies in the highest esteem, often regarded as second only to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). With Coral Gables Art Cinema holding a one night only after-hours screening of Spider-Man (2002) later this month, I had to ask: how does Sam Raimi’s foray through the world of superheroes hold up nearly twenty years later?
