J. Don Birnam

Jan 15, 2024 | abovetheline.com | J. Don Birnam

For anyone who thought that the resurgence of Great Mexican Cinema was limited to the Oscar-winning “Three Amigos”: think again. One of the most exciting, fresh new faces in the Mexican and International Film Circuit is Lila Avilés. At just 35, her debut feature film The Chambermaidwas selected as Mexico’s entry to the 92nd Academy Awards. In that movie, Avilés offers a quiet but profound portrayal of a woman who cleans hotel rooms in Mexico City.

Jan 10, 2024 | abovetheline.com | J. Don Birnam

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been personally victimized by bad idea Hollywood remakes. Indeed, the limit does not exist, at least when it comes to the lengths that Hollywood will go to for a potentially easy buck. Tina Fey in fact made “fetch” happen with her now iconic, arguably brilliant 2004 comedy Mean Girls. It was then predictably made into a musical, and that production has now been retrofitted back into the big screen.

Dec 26, 2023 | btlnews.com | J. Don Birnam

Fantasia Barino, Colman Domingo, and Taraji P. Henson star in the new musical version adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel, The Color Purple. The film follows Celie (Barino) through the span of five decades of suffering, abuse at the hands of her husband Mister (Doming), separation from her sister, and her encounters with various other women who similarly endure suffering in the early American century, such as Shug (Henson) and Sofia (Danielle Brooks).

Dec 22, 2023 | abovetheline.com | J. Don Birnam

In 1972, a Uruguayan flight carrying 45 people crashed into the Andes Mountains, leaving some of them stranded in the freezing, punishing snow of the terrain. In 2023, Spanish film director J.A. Bayona has adapted this book of this remarkable story into a breathtaking motion picture courtesy of Netflix –The Society of the Snow.

Dec 21, 2023 | abovetheline.com | J. Don Birnam

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the latest entry in the grotesquely oversized superhero genre that has taken over Hollywood, is purportedly the last in the DC Comics Cinematic Universe. Praise the Lord, including that of the Seven Seas. Jason Momoa once again stars as the titular amphibian, Arthur Curry/Aquaman, in a quest to save the world from an overly ambitious bad guy with unlikely allies. The story is so trite it is difficult to describe.