Frank Calvillo Archives -

THE DEB MOVIE REVIEW Every girl dreams of her big debut, with the perfect dress, the perfect date, and the perfect night to remember. Unless you’re a teenage feminist who thinks the whole thing is a patriarchal nightmare. Then it’s time to burn down the ballroom. Rebel Wilson makes her feature directorial debut with The […]

ANIMALS MOVIE REVIEW Politics is a dirty business. But when your family-values campaign turns into a hostage situation, things are about to get downright savage. In this Ben Affleck written and directed Netflix crime thriller, wealthy Los Angeles mayoral candidate Mark Kimball (Affleck) is days away from an election when his young son is kidnapped […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? BONUS SEASON 2 EP 3 – JOAN ON THE TUBE On this next episode, it’s time for Joan on the tube and a quartet of Crawford performances in series like The Revlon Mirror Theater and The Bob Hope Show. Even though each one was made for the small […]

MASTERPLAN MOVIE REVIEW Masterplan stars Stanley Tucci as Roger Cavendish, a legendary thief of international renown with one last scheme before he retires. Roger plans to steal the Mona Lisa, but to pull off the crime of the century, he’ll need the help of his children, master hacker Chiara (Simona Tabasco) and explosives expert Jay […]

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING MOVIE REVIEW Elizabeth Holmes sits in prison for what seems to be a pretty open and shut case of fraud. Her company, Theranos, claimed it had a device that revolutionized blood testing by being able to take a fingerprick worth of blood and do a giant battery of tests on it. […]

WHALEFALL MOVIE REVIEW Let’s get it out of the way right now: Whalefall is a movie about a guy who gets swallowed by a whale and has to figure out how to escape before his air runs out. Sounds like a Tubi original, right? But no, this is a wide theatrical release with big name […]

TRASH ON THE TUBE: THE TIM CONWAY SHOW & LAUGH-IN On a very special episode of Trash on the Tube, critic Frank Calvillo brings the boys two episodes of television that have been long forgotten, but contain Hollywood Royalty. The short lived The Tim Conway Show has a very special guest star, Joan Crawford, where […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? – WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO KENNETH HYMAN? On the second episode of this bonus season, we look at the career of Kenneth Hyman, the influential movie producer who spearheaded the production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, as well as many other classic titles. First up, the […]

WITHOUT BLOOD MOVIE REVIEW Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality, other people get killed; not you”. A more modern writer, multiple award winning Alessandro Baricco, examines the fallout of war in his work Without Blood which now has been adapted and directed […]

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? – BONUS SEASON 2 EPISODE 1: BETTE ON THE TUBE For the first episode of this second bonus season, we look at Bette on the tube and the collection of characters she took on for shows such as General Electric Theater and Schlitz Playhouse. All filmed between March […]

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY: BONUS EP.4 – THE THREE MUSKETEERS/THE FOUR MUSKETEERS For our final bonus episode, we’re ending the summer by revisiting Faye in all her villainous glory in 1973’s The Three Musketeers and its unexpected sequel, 1974’s The Four Musketeers. Based on the classic novel by Alexandre Dumas, the classic tale tells the story of […]

THE SUN NEVER SETS MOVIE REVIEW During the summer time in some parts of Alaska, there are more than 15 hours of direct daylight. You might even say, much like the title of this new IFC release,  that The Sun Never Sets. Wendy (Dakota Fanning) loves camping, taking long hikes, breathing in the fresh air, […]

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY: BONUS EP.3 – FAYE’S CONTEMPORARIES On this third bonus episode of Hollywood Royalty, we take a small break from talking Faye to shine a light on a handful of her contemporaries, including Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Liza Minnelli, and Barbra Streisand, all of whom ruled the decade as some […]

THE WRONG GIRLS MOVIE REVIEW I definitely did not have on my scorecard for 2026, NEON releases a stoner superhero movie with Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat. But here we are. The Wrong Girls follows these two (Frankie and Molly respectively) who are best friends, roommates, bombed out stoners, and total losers. Rent and bills […]

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY: BONUS EP.2- HURRY SUNDOWN/THE DEADLY TRAP On this bonus episode of Hollywood Royalty, we take a look at two of Faye’s B-sides, a pair of films that don’t readily come to mind when you think of Faye Dunaway. The first of the two titles, 1967’s Hurry Sundown for director Otto Preminger, represents Faye’s […]

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY After the spell caused everyone to forget who he is, Peter (Tom Holland) has fully submerged himself in being Spider-Man all of the time. Constantly on the prowl for crime, he still is haunted by the loss of his friendship with Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his girlfriend M.J. (Zendaya) who are […]

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY – BONUS EP.1: THE WOMAN I LOVE/THE DISAPPEARANCE OF AIMEE Hollywood Royalty returns with the first in a series of bonus episodes where we’ll be looking at, among other things, more 60s/70s Faye. We’re kicking things off with made-for-TV Faye and two TV movies the actress made during her 1970s glory days that […]

THE ISOLATE THIEF MOVIE REVIEW Winter has a way of revealing who people truly are, and this frontier western thriller unfolds at a remote Union outpost in the Oregon Territory after the Civil War, where a young woman named Ada (Mackenzie Foy), struggles to survive the icy wilderness. After an encounter with a mysterious man, […]

COUTURE MOVIE REVIEW Maria Callas once said “Paris dictates fashion to the whole world” while Sonia Rykiel once mused “You can create fashion anywhere in the world, but the place where you are crowned is Paris”. In case you haven’t guessed, this film is about fashion in the city of lights during the biggest fashion […]

THE GET OUT MOVIE REVIEW The Get Out stars Russell Crowe as Marco Kapak, a heavy set, viagra popping, hard partying Albanian who runs a popular nightclub in Los Angeles. In the course of a few days, Marco suffers a heart attack and is robbed at gunpoint. This run of bad luck convinces him that […]

HACKS SEASON 5 REVIEW Maya Angelou once said “Your legacy is every life you touch”. A famous journalist/second wave feminist named Gloria Steinem once said “There were never that many women stand up comics in the past because the power to make people laugh is also a power that makes people upset.” In 2021 the […]

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY: EP. 13 – WRAP-UP/MID-00S TO PRESENT DAY We’ve reached the end of our exploration into Faye and her career post-Mommie Dearest, from the early 80s to the early 00s. For this final episode, we’ll be wrapping things up with a look at a small handful of the titles I didn’t get to cover […]

FINNEGAN’S FOURSOME MOVIE REVIEW From multi-hyphenate filmmaker Edward Burns comes Finnegan’s Foursome, a dramedy about a golf loving clan of Irish-Americans. Brothers Teddy (Brian d’Arcy James) and Freddy (Burns) and their respective grown children, Marie (Erica Hernández) and Frankie (Brian Muller) have traveled to the ancestral home of their recently deceased patriarch, James...

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY: MINISODE 12 – THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968) We wrap up this series of minisodes spotlighting classic 60s/70s Faye with the movie that further solidified her status as a movie star in the late 60s, 1968’s The Thomas Crown Affair. The stylish romantic caper sees Faye play an insurance investigator who sets her […]

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY: EP.12 – THE HANDMAID’S TALE/THE TEMP/RUNNING MATES This week on Hollywood Royalty, it’s time for our penultimate episode featuring the Faye you love to hate with three films that show the actress’ knack for exploring characters that, while not outright villains, defy conventional likability. First up, we look at Faye’s chilly take on […]