Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Fabulous Baker Boys

(1989)

I think this is the only time the Bridges boys, Jeff and Beau, have worked together, and to me it is just a little uncomfortable to watch because the on-screen situation has some parallels with the two real brothers. The Baker boys, Jack (Jeff) and Frank (Beau) are a piano duo who have been playing in bars and restaurants for fifteen years, and go back even further than that together. ... Read more »

Faces of November

(1964)

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the assassination in Dallas, TCM has been showing Kennedy-related movies. This one is from documentarian Robert Drew and is only twelve minutes long. It focuses almost entirely on the faces of the people filing past the coffin in the Capital rotunda, and standing outside to watch the funeral cortege pass by. It is heartbreaking.

Faces of November

(1964)

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the assassination in Dallas, TCM has been showing Kennedy-related movies. This one is from documentarian Robert Drew and is only twelve minutes long. It focuses almost entirely on the faces of the people filing past the coffin in the Capital rotunda, and standing outside to watch the funeral cortege pass by. It is heartbreaking.

Facing Windows

(La finestra di fronte, Italy)

An outwardly appealing movie that suffers from a lack of focus. A couple in Rome find an old man wandering, amnesic, and take him home. He gradually becomes part of the family. He revives some old dreams the wife has. Meantime, a weird romance blossoms with the man across the street, who is obsessed with the wife. The old man is a Holocaust survivor … and it never really comes ... Read more »

Fading Gigolo

(2013)

Kind of an odd movie. It was written and directed by, and stars John Turturro, for once not playing a creepy guy, and co-stars Woody Allen, in one of his few roles in a movie he didn’t write and direct. Through circumstances too ridiculous to describe, Turturro becomes a high-priced gigolo, and Woody is his pimp. We are asked to believe that really, really rich women (there is a four-story ... Read more »

Fahrenheit 451

(UK, 1966)

Science fiction movies from this era are usually a mixed bag, at best. Most of them totally suck. A very few have something intelligent to say. I thought this one was a little of both. It was not a happy production, François Truffaut being uncomfortable working in English, a language he never did master, and Oskar Werner behaving like a prima donna asshole most of the time. The screenplay ... Read more »

Fahrenheit 9/11

(2004)

For years Lee and I have been devoted fans of documentaries. People don’t make them to get rich, they are almost always a labor of love. But they sneak into art theaters and play for about a week, often in December to quality for the Oscars. Then they’re gone. So you may not have heard of this film, but it’s worth your time. It’s made by an obscure filmmaker from Flint, Michigan, of all ... Read more »

Fair Game

(2010)

Based on the true story of Valerie Plame vs. the scum of the GW Bush administration, including “Scooter” Libby (convicted, sentenced, and then commuted by scum Bush) and Dick Cheney, who deliberately outed her for blatantly political reasons concerning the lies they all told in the lead-up to the never-ending Iraq War. I didn’t follow the story all that closely at the time and so can’t ... Read more »

The Fall

(UK, 2013)

There were two seasons of this show set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the second one in 2014. If I had been watching it as it came out I think I might have felt cheated by the first season, as there was very little resolution. The end of the second season, however, was quite satisfying, and left little room for a third …

Gillian Anderson is a police detective called in from London ... Read more »

The Fall

(USA, India, 2006)

It’s 1915 in Los Angeles. A five-year-old Romanian immigrant named Alexandria was picking oranges with her family to make a living when she fell out of a tree and broke her arm. Now she is in a rather nice hospital, recovering. She is befriended by Roy, a wannabe stunt man whose very first stunt, a jump on a horse from a railroad trestle into river went badly wrong. He may be paralyzed, ... Read more »