The Impossible

That’s what I would have said if you told me this story, and I didn’t know it was true. A family of five, tourists in Thailand on December 26, 2004 when the biggest tsunami we had ever seen up to that time hit the resort hotel they were staying in … and they all survived. When you see what it was like to be thrown into that maelstrom and whirled about with tons and tons of lethal trash, ... Read more »

Imposter

Yet another big movie made from a Philip K. Dick short story. It’s 2079 and Earth has been at war with invaders from Alpha Centauri for a few decades. The Centaurians have a technology whereby they can kill someone and put all his memories into a cloned body indistinguishable from the real one without elaborate tests. So the replicant thinks he’s the original. Through some ... Read more »

Impromptu

Chronicles the love affair between Frédéric Chopin and “George Sand,” a French proto-feminist who dressed in men’s clothes and conquered any man she had a mind to. These included Franz Liszt and Eugène Delacroix. In fact, you get the impression she fucked most of the creative men in mid-19th-century Paris, and much of the surrounding countryside. It’s amazing, because she was not a great ... Read more »

In a Lonely Place

Humphrey Bogart has always struck me as the unlikeliest romantic leading man ever. Just take the name. Even back then, I don’t think many people saw Humphrey as very sexy, and how long has it been since you’ve met a Humphrey in real life? He wasn’t handsome. He had a speech defect. And yet he dominated every film he was in. I guess it’s down to something like charisma.

This was an ... Read more »

In a World …

I was looking forward to this one. It was written by, directed by, and stars a woman named Lake Bell. I admire that sort of determination to get your film made. And it’s not a bad one. It concerns the esoteric world of voice-over recording for movie trailers. You know the kind: A deep-voiced and somehow menacing and/or ominous man opens the thing (after a thudding bass note or two) saying ... Read more »

In America

One of the all-time greats. The acting of the children is wonderful. In fact, everything about it is wonderful. We just saw it again on DVD, and was even better the second time. Couldn’t recommend it more highly.

In Bruges

First, let’s get something absolutely clear: though it says nothing about it on the box, this is a foreign language movie. Some intelligible English is spoken, here and there, mostly by Belgians, but all of Colin Farrell’s dialogue is in Irish. Not Gaelic, but in an Irish accent so thick, so impenetrable, that I’d wager there’s plenty ... Read more »

In Country

There are some great war movies that concentrate on combat. Saving Private Ryan, Paths of Glory (the first part), Full Metal Jacket (the second part), and Platoon come to mind. But the ones I prefer are those that concentrate on the home front, and/or the aftermath: Mrs. Miniver, Coming ... Read more »

In Darkness

In 1943 the fucking Nazis decided to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Lvov. (Or Lviv, or Lwow, sources differ. It’s a city with a complicated history. At the time it was part of Poland; now it’s in the Ukraine. No, they didn’t move the city, they moved all the Poles.) A small group of Jews entered the sewer system and tried to hide there to escape the slaughter. They were assisted by Leopold ... Read more »

In Good Company

You know this is going to be fairly standard stuff from the start, but I like Dennis Quaid and love Scarlett Johannson, so we took a look. And for the first two acts it was damn good, transcending the material because of smart writing and top-notch acting. A loathsome young yuppie played very well by Topher Grace (Topher?) is promoted way beyond his capabilities over a man twice his age. ... Read more »