Year: 2023

‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is super-nostalgic but not super-fun

Jeff Mitchell

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023) – Mario and Luigi! These siblings are worldwide household names.  Literally, because millions of kids – and adults – played Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo video game consoles, beginning in the 1980s. Mario’s first appearance was 1981’s Donkey Kong, an arcade staple during the Ronald Reagan years, but Nintendo Co., Ltd. also created several home gaming offshoots featuring the famous animated brothers. The home game presented the mustached fellas running through a never-ending wonderland of blue skies, walking mushrooms, and cubes of bricks suspended…

Set in New York City, ‘Scream VI’ fails to make ‘a brand-new start of it’

Jeff Mitchell

“Scream VI” (2023) – “I’m gonna make a brand-new start of it in old New York.” – “New York, New York” (1977) It’s 2023, and the “Scream” series left the Left Coast and Woodsboro, Calif.   The Scream Team is now cutting its teeth in The Big Apple.  Fourteen months after the fifth installment’s release, “Scream” (2022), directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick are back with another Ghostface creation.  The filmmakers crisscrossed the country with the stars from the last film:  Sam (Melissa…

The Oscar-nominated ‘The Quiet Girl’ speaks volumes

Jeff Mitchell

“The Quiet Girl” (2022) – “If you were mine, I’d never leave you in a house with strangers.” – Eibhlin (Carrie Crowley) As director/writer Colm Bairead’s movie opens, it’s springtime in 1981, and Cait (Catherine Clinch), a bashful nine-year-old, lives in a bustling home but one without radiant, productive energy.  Cait lives with a few sisters and her parents (Michael Patric and Kate Nic Chonaonaigh).  Her mom (Chonaonaigh) is expecting a baby boy in a few months, towards the end of the summer.  However, downtrodden moods linger within these dreary…