Minions-The Rise of Gru, Review: One in a minion Minion and Villain don’t rhyme. They shouldn’t. After all, what is a primary school kid doing? Yes, he is almost a dwarf, and we would love to see his rise. But rise as what? An arch-villain? A super-villain? There are some movies in which good, clean, animation fun turns into adult stuff that can affect the mind-set of millions of viewers. Films need not preach or moralise, but they need not glorify villainy either. This is one suc...

Siraj Syed reviews Hidden Figures: US-Russia space race & black women’s amazing grace Did you know that three black women played crucial roles in NASA’s space programme, and without them, John Glenn would not be remembered as the first American astronaut to make it back to earth, but as a young man who got burnt to cinders, along with his spacecraft, by the heat generated on his vehicle’s re-entry into earth’s orbit? This is the true story of the rather unimaginati...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Octavia Spencer stars as Dorothy Vaughan in HIDDEN FIGURES. Photo Credit: Hopper Stone. Who knew NASA and IBM would be the corporate darlings of this year’s Oscar race? Or, translated into Award Season trivia for 2017, who knew HIDDEN FIGURES from 20th Century Fox, about three NASA human “Computers,” would run up unexpected numbers at the box office and put stars Kevin Costner, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Mon...

On Friday night, another mob scene waited outside the Arlington for their honoree and ultimately filled the house.  Every year the Santa Barbara International Film Festival presents a Director In Residence and this year the versatile David Fincher opened up at the Q & A, dishing the 411 on his film career and the industry in general. Jake Gyllenhaal and Taraji P. Henson were also on hand making additional contributions as per their experience working with Finch with Pete Hammond on deck ...