Movie Reviews
Spare Parts
We all love underdog stories, don’t we? From Rocky to Pitch Perfect, it doesn’t much matter what the competition is, it’s great to see the underdog put the smug favorites in their place. This is one of the better ones, and it seems they have taken remarkably few liberties with it. It’s the story of a team of young men from Carl Hayden ... Read more »
Howard the Duck
Michael Cimino made The Deer Hunter, with most of the new generation of Holly wood stars. Awards showered down on him. Then he made Heaven’s Gate. He hasn’t been heard from since.
Steven Spielberg made Jaws, revolutionizing the action movie genre, then he made Close Encounters of ... Read more »
Black Sea
I think all submarine movies are basically alike, except for the depth charges in wartime movies. From Run Silent, Run Deep to The Hunt for Red October to Das Boot, we see the same scenes of high pressure water squirting into the interior, the plunge toward depths the hull just can’t ... Read more »
Begin Again
The problem in a film like this is the music. We travel along with a singer/songwriter as she is discovered, developed, and begins to have some success. To really enjoy the movie then, it seems to me, we need to think she is really, really good. But good to you might not be good to me. So … do you like Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Nikki Minaj, Ani DiFranco? (Feel free ... Read more »
Leviathan
Kolya is an ordinary Russian (which means, among other things, that he drinks way too much) who is getting fucked over by a corrupt mayor, and corrupt city council, and a corrupt Church. They want his miserable .66 acre and the house he built that stands on it, and they will bring the whole weight of authority down on his head to get it. And guess what? They get ... Read more »
Mad Max: Fury Road
Hmmm. Should I start off with the bad stuff, or the good stuff? Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way …
This is very bad “science” fiction, but I imagine we’re all pretty used to that these days, what with the semi-ridiculous Interstellar being promoted as “good” SF. I’m just going to tackle one of the impossibilities of this weird desert world. All that ... Read more »
Flashpoint
Our Canadian/American friend Spider Robinson recommended this. I wonder if any SWAT team anywhere is as well-trained and compassionate as the one portrayed here, ostensibly in the city of Toronto?
On the other hand, my only experience is of fictional SWAT teams on TV, where they are invariably shown as cowboys to a man, ready to go in with guns blazing and chafing at the ... Read more »
Grace and Frankie
How’s this for a dream cast: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, and Sam Waterston? Those are the stars of the new Netflix sitcom, which came out all at once on May 8, as is their wont. And if you have long dreamed of seeing President Jed Bartlett plant a big smackeroo on the lips of District Attorney Jack McCoy, this is the series you’ve been waiting for!
The premise is simple. ... Read more »
Still Alice
Of all the horrible things that can happen to a person in this vale of tears, the scariest one to me is getting burned over ninety percent of my body … and surviving. In second place is Alzheimer’s. (Third place is getting eaten alive by a shark, but I think I have that one solved. Just don’t go in the water. No matter what happened in that movie Sharknado, I ... Read more »
Million Dollar Arm
I have maintained for a long time that no true American can ever really understand cricket. I’m kidding, of course … but not completely. Several times in my life I have tried to figure cricket out, reading the rules and the object of play and so forth, and once in a while I’ve thought I’ve actually got it. But ask me about it a week later, and I come up with a ... Read more »