Movie Reviews
Titles starting with T
Taking Lives
I didn’t care for Angelina Jolie at first. I try very hard not to let my feelings about an actor as a person affect my feelings about the art. After all, what do I really know? Gossip, that’s all. That’s all you know, too. The impression we get that we know famous people is an illusion, always, unless you have met them in person, and even then you can get blindsided by hero-worship and ... Read more »
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Boy, did I ever nail this one. When I heard that the classic film starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw was being remade by Tony Scott, script by Brian Helgeland, I just had to see the original again, which turned out to be even better than I remembered it. I also made a few predictions about this one, and I’m batting a thousand.
I said it would be more action-packed. In the ...
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The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
As I write this we are two days away from the release of the remake of this classic. I just had to see the original again, to refresh my memory about how good it was. Maybe the new one will be good, too (though I’m not optimistic, from the preview I saw), but I will guarantee you this: It won’t be as good as this one. More action packed? No question. In the original, a police car goes out ... Read more »
Taking Sides
The story of the post-war questioning of Wilhelm Furtwangler, a famous German conductor who may or may not have been a Nazi collaborator. He’s not as well-known as Leni Riefenstahl, probably because he died in 1955. The theme is much like Vonnegut’s Mother Night: be careful what you pretend to be. But Vonnegut’s story was much better. I ended up more sympathetic to Furtwangler than to his ... Read more »
Taking Woodstock
A little over 40 years ago 50 million people gathered in a cow pasture about 90 miles northwest of New York City for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Or at least that’s how it seems, when you consider all the people who claim to have been there. I was one of the 500,000 who actually was there, for the whole thing. There has been a lot of discussion about Woodstock during the 40th ... Read more »
The Talented Mr. Ripley
My first experience of the amoral and oddly sympathetic Ripley. I have the greatest respect for Patricia Highsmith, and intend to read the books very soon. Highly recommended.
Tales From the Script
Everybody knows the director. Thanks to the French, who came up with this crazy idea that the director is the author of the film, they are almost as big as the stars. But there are four other people who are responsible for how a movie looks and works: the editor, the cinematographer, the production designer, and the writer, and of these the most important is the ... Read more »
Talk to Me
I never really know how much is true in these biopics “based on” the life of a real person. I usually assume that the broad strokes are mostly accurate, though details may be omitted for dramatic reasons. This story of the career of Ralph “Petey” Green, a ground-breaking black disc jockey in Washington, DC, in the late ‘60s and into the ‘70s, for instance, never mentions his three ... Read more »
The Tall Guy
I’m keeping a list of under-appreciated films and this one is going right on it. One day when I get around to it I will publish the list. It came and went with some good reviews, but it deserved better. It’s Emma Thompson’s first movie (she had worked seven years in television), and stars Jeff Goldblum as an American actor working in London. For five years he’s been second banana to a ... Read more »
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
I believe I really tried to dislike this, but it kept sneaking up on me and hitting me on the funnybone, hard. I don’t know if this is where Will Ferrell came up with the crude, obnoxious, gross, good-old-boy that you know you should hate but end up kind of liking, the character he basically repeated in Blades of Glory, but it works well here. This is a savage ... Read more »