‘Movie Corner’ Archives
Movie Corner: “Old”
Old: courtesy Universal Pictures (2021 Universal Pictures) ★★☆☆☆ By HOWARD McQUITTER M. Night Shyamalan is up to another one of his "prize" thrillers that simply doesn't add up to a hill of beans. I often say I'll go for the ride with a movie if it lacks in major areas, but with OldI just wanted to not even get on the ride. Back in 2002, with his film The Sixth Sense(his first actual film is Wide Awake in 1998),the public was in awe of starring actors Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg, and Glenn Fitzgerald. Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, indeed a sensation, drew viewers from word of mouth as well as by advertisement. Old is the movie that should have never left the drawing board. At first, about a dozen tourists are told about an isolated "paradise" island which is supposed to be the ideal vacation spot. Strange things [...]
Summer of Soul
Movie Corner (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Documentary/Music (2021 Searchlight Pictures) ★★★★★ By HOWARD MCQUITTER II Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969 is the festival all but forgotten, deliberately thrown (literally) down in a basement. Many people in Harlem at the time believed the festival is the main reason racial disturbances that year didn't occur like the previous year after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4,1968. All in all, over 300,000 Harlem residents, 99% African American, crowded into Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) - all outdoors - to see and hear a great tribute to African American music: gospel, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, and soul. The few cops at the festival are barely visible. Nearly all the security is provided by the Black Panthers for an energetic, peaceful, and historical [...]
Movie Corner: A Quiet Place II
Paramount Pictures ★★★★★ By HOWARD McQUITTER II A Quiet Place ll is the real deal judging from the stellar original A Quiet Place (2018) which puts us on edge often and with oompah such not to be easily forgotten. Not long ago, my faith in the horror genre stood near nadir, well, at least since the days of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980), both palatable horror films. But my confidence slowly returns with horror pictures such as the Spanish film The Orphanage (2007), It Follows (2015) and Get Out (2017), all intelligent films. The second installment of Quiet Place starts off on Day 1, with Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) living, cars going to and fro, electricity is on, American flags rippling in the wind, and boys playing baseball, townspeople drawn out on a sunny summer day. Strange [...]
