Movie Reviews
The Angry Silence
I think this one could inspire debates that might go on for days, if not years. In fact, it is still going on. I’m trying to think of movies that express an anti-union sentiment, even a mild one, and I’m not coming up with many. On the Waterfront qualifies, I guess. But I doubt that we’re ever going to see a lot of movies that are really critical of unions. ... Read more »
Crack-Up
Here’s a movie that really should have an exclamation point after the title. It is firmly in the noir genre, though it deals with a level of society quite a bit higher than normally shown in noir. Pat O’Brien, who I associate with brash, wise-guy characters, always quick with a quip, plays a mild-mannered art critic. On his way to see his sick mother, the train he is on collides head-on ... Read more »
Topaze
This is not the sort of part I associate with John Barrymore, the most respected actor of his day, both on stage and on screen. But then, I haven’t really seen all that many of his pictures. He was known as The Great Profile, a devilishly handsome man, and usually the romantic lead, at least early in his career. The best performance by him that I have seen was the hilariously clever Read more »
Oscar Nominated Short Films
Since our friends Jon and Marion took us to a showing of these films a few years ago at the Academy Theater in Hollywood, we have tried to take in the program before Oscar night. Here in Portland, the Hollywood theatre shows them in the two weeks just before the awards. It’s not the same as going to the Academy, where after the showing all the directors get up on the stage and discuss ... Read more »
The Drop
First there was a short story, “Animal Rescue,” by Dennis Lehane. The author then turned it into a screenplay, and wrote a novel from it after that. (This was the same creation sequence of my short story, “Air Raid,” and my movie script and novel, Millennium.)
This is a competent but not ground-breaking crime story. Well, they can’t all be ... Read more »
A Good Marriage
Here’s a happy accident. Somehow this floated to the top of my Netflix queue and I got it instead of John Wick, which was what I wanted. I put it in the queue in the first place on the strength of Joan Allen being in it. I have always liked her. The co-star is Anthony LaPaglia, who is also usually good. But the Metacritic score was a lousy 43, and the viewers at ... Read more »
The South (El Sur)
Sometimes you just can’t catch a break. This marks two evenings in a row that we were lured into watching a movie that just stops, with no resolution. As I said in my review of I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, it is possible to make me like an ending like that, but it’s very rare. I hated the ending of that one, and I’m stunned by the ending of this one. I won’t even ... Read more »
A Yank at Eton
I have always liked Mickey Rooney. He was such a little ball of energy, you expected sparks to fly off of him. Here he is a high school football star who intends to go on to Notre Dame. But his mother in England marries a rich aristocrat, and sends for him and his little sister. The stepfather is a decent fellow, but Mickey hates him and everything English at first sight. He is enrolled at ... Read more »
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead
SPOILER WARNING. Clive Owen was a feared member of the London underworld, but gave it all up several years ago and lives a simple life now. But his younger brother is found dead in his bathtub, his throat slit, an apparent suicide. Clive returns to the big city to find out why. We already know why, because we have seen him held down by two thugs and brutally raped by Malcolm McDowell. ... Read more »
The Front Page
Here we have the third (out of four) film version of the classic play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, and the second-best of the bunch. It’s a good movie, but there is just no way anyone is ever going to touch the Cary Grant, Roz Russell, Howard Hawks second version, re-titled His Girl Friday. In that one Hildy Johnson, the love-struck reporter trying to ... Read more »