Tag Archives: Denzel Washington

Highest 2 Lowest review — Spike Lee’s hip-hop Kurosawa joint

September 28, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Spike Lee | Screenplay by Alan Fox, based on Akira Kurosawa's High And Low, written by Hideo Oguni, Ryûzô Kikushima, and Eijirô Hisaita, and the book King's Ransom by Evan Hunter | 133 min | ▲▲▲1/2 | Apple TV+ At the heart of this picture is a conundrum that Spike Lee and Alan… Read More

Gladiator II review — We are entertained, but this movie doesn’t echo in eternity

November 22, 2024 flawintheiris

Directed by Ridley Scott | Written by David Scarpa and Peter Craig | 148 min | ▲▲▲△△ I was never a part of Gladiator's rabid cult. I recognized it as an unexpectedly popular throwback entertainment, swords and sandals at a time when neither were cool, but to anoint it with five Oscars in 2000, including… Read More

Documentary Reviews: Sidney, The Sound of 007, Nothing Compares

October 10, 2022 flawintheiris

Sidney | Directed by Reginald Hudlin | Written by Jesse James Miller | 111 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Apple TV+ Earlier this year on the podcast I co-host with Stephen Cooke, LENS ME YOUR EARS, we took a look back at some of Sidney Poitier's great films. To be honest, we only scratched the surface.… Read More

The Tragedy of Macbeth review — Bold and resolute, though not too bloody

January 13, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Joel Coen | Written by Coen, adapting the play by William Shakespeare | 105 min | ▲▲▲△△ Feels like a lot of people were left scratching their heads over this one. I mean, anything the Coens do is naturally of interest — the brothers are the best, most consistent American filmmakers of their… Read More

Reviews From The Vault Vol. 9 — Thrillers

September 4, 2019 flawintheiris

From 2005 to 2009 I was a programmer on CKDU 88.1 FM in Halifax, every Sunday morning hosting The Love & Hate Movie Show. I talked about what I was seeing and revisited some of my favourite films of old, pretty much what I do now here on FITI. I still have a lot of… Read More

The Equalizer 2 review— Thriller meanders through muddy plot

August 5, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by Antoine Fuqua | Written by Richard Wenk | 120 min | Netflix Three key things to take away from the sequel to the 2014 actioner, The Equalizer. One: It's the least actually cinematic thriller in recent memory. This franchise is based on a TV series—if you're under 35 likely you won't recall the Edward… Read More

Roman J. Israel, Esq. review — Legal thriller pivots on faith

November 30, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Dan Gilroy | 129 min Gilroy the writer-director gave us the impressive Nightcrawler in 2014. Gilroy as just the screenwriter goes a lot further back than that—he was one of the scribes on the largely forgotten Mick Jagger science-fiction picture Freejack in the early '90s, with some interesting fare since then. Based… Read More

The Magnificent Seven (2016) review — Old and young guns shoot straight enough in western remake

October 2, 2016 flawintheiris

Directed by Antoine Fuqua | Written by Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolato, based on the screenplays for The Magnificent Seven (1960) by William Roberts and The Seven Samurai (1954) by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni | 133 min A remake of a remake of a remake, this newest tale of hired guns helping out a village… Read More

Reviews From The Vault: Vol. 1

August 27, 2015 flawintheiris

Between 2005 and 2009 I was a programmer on CKDU 88.1 FM every Sunday morning with something called The Love & Hate Movie Show. I talked about what I was seeing and revisited some of my favourite films of old, pretty much what I do now here on FITI. I still have a lot of… Read More

The Equalizer vs. A Walk Among The Tombstones: Two Sides of the Same Blood-Spattered Coin?

October 2, 2014 flawintheiris

The Equalizer—directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by Richard Wenk, from the TV series created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim A Walk Among The Tombstones—written and directed by Scott Frank, adapting the novel by Lawrence Block A trailer for a something called John Wick, opening later this month, ran before A Walk Among The Tombstones. This is… Read More