The Greatest Showman, Review: Also fraudster, huckster and the King of humbug! Hollywood’s great showman Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) was a grandiose, over-the-big-top tribute to circuses, and won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Story. It was the story of the Ringling Circus and not about Phineas Taylor Barnum, who has inspired the film at hand. The Greatest Showman is about P.T. Barnum, and the reference to the film of 65 years ago is made becau...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Corresponden   t   What is it with ‘ripped from the alt-news headlines’ movie plots lately? KONG: SKULL ISLAND has a hollow earth slash reptilian b-story, even a CIA mind control “Monarch” reference on a briefcase. Now LIFE, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal, has a waterborne microbe from Mars mass-extinction horror twist. While scary stories about hostile life on Mars is a running theme since B-movies in the 50&r...

Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, Review: Bond-Bourne amalgamation You couldn’t escape noticing that the Mumbai press preview of Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation was being held at the renovated Fun Republic. Two hours and eleven minutes later, you found out that the film was not about a 'nation', but about international rogues. That stated, for once, the expectations, unconsciously raised by a trivial similarity in the names of the venue and the film, were met. Inspiration for...