Josh Reviews A Most Violent Year
In the ripping crime yarn A Most Violent Year, Oscar Isaac plays Abel Morales, the owner of a Brooklyn-based oil company. As the film opens, in 1981, Abel and his friend and attorney, Andrew Walsh (Albert Brooks), have just secured a great deal: the purchase of an enormous fuel term
Josh Reviews Crimson Peak
A new film by Guillermo del Toro is always a source of great excitement for me. Add to that the idea of Mr. del Toro, a master of horror and fantasy, involved in a haunted house movie? Delicious. Crimson Peak has not been successful at the box office, which is a shame because it
Josh Reviews Bridge of Spies
Bridge of Spies, the new film from Steven Spielberg, spans events in the Cold War from 1957-1962. The film opens with the arrest of Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet spy living in Brooklyn, NY. Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks), a lawyer who primarily deals with insurance, agrees to serv
Josh Reviews Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon
Douglas Tirola’s new documentary Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon tells the story of the rise (and eventual decline) of the brilliant, hugely influential humor magazine The National Lampoon. The film follows its origins as a Harvard magazine, to i
Josh Reviews Ex Machina
In Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina, Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, a young programmer for Bluebook (a company that, in the world of the film, is the world’s most popular search engine). Caleb wins a contest to spend a week with the company’s brilliant and reclusive y
Josh Reviews The Martian
What a refreshing joy it is to get to see an intelligent, original science-fiction story that is also gorgeous to behold and ferociously entertaining. The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott and written by Drew Goddard, adapting the book by Andy Weir, is a triumph, a gripping story abou
Josh Reviews Kevin Pollak’s Misery Loves Comedy
As I have written about multiple times, I am a huge fan of Kevin Pollak’s amazing podcast Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, in which Mr. Pollak sits down for extended (and I mean extended — most of the interviews are about two hours long) conversations with comedians and act
Josh Reviews Black Mass
Black Mass tells the story of Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger, the Boston crime boss who, for twenty years, was allowed to operate and consolidate power in Boston by the local branch of the FBI because of Bulger’s secret role as an FBI informant, helping the FBI work against t
Josh Reviews I Am Chris Farley
After watching Tig (the lovely documentary about comedian Tig Notaro that I just reviewed), it was fun to move on to another documentary about a talented comedian, albeit one who died far too young. I am Chris Farley, directed by Brent Hodge & Derik Murray, is a loving look back a
Josh Reviews Tig
I first heard of comedian Tig Notaro back in 2012. I was on a list on Louie C.K.’s web-site, after I had purchased the stand-up routine he had made available on his site. And so I received the mass e-mail sent out announcing that one could now download a new stand-up routine