Movie Reviews
Titles starting with A
American Violet
If there is still a thinking being out there somewhere who believes the so-called “War on Drugs” is a good idea, this movie should disabuse them of that silly notion. As The Onion pointed out years ago, the war is over. Drugs won. Far beyond their ability to destroy lives ... Read more »
American Wedding
This has to qualify as a guilty pleasure. I decided I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, but wanted to start with the first in the series, American Pie. One of the wisest decisions I ever made, because Wedding is the weakest of the series, not really much good at all. But though I would never recommend these ... Read more »
The Americanization of Emily
This is one of those movies that made a great impression on me when it was new. I was a senior in high school and hadn’t really thought much about military service. I was going to be a student, I’d have a deferment, and surely the war in Southeast Asia couldn’t go on much longer. (I didn’t know it but I’d spend the next eight years of my life fighting the ... Read more »
Amores Perros
Translated, roughly, “Love’s a Bitch.” I don’t mean it as a putdown in any way when I say this is a sort of Mexican Pulp Fiction. The director is a fan of Tarantino, but not a slavish imitator. He takes the elements of interconnected stories, ... Read more »
Amour
I sometimes wonder why people bother going to horror movies when there’s something like this around. You want horror? Watch an alert, vital senior citizen (Emmanuelle Riva, 85, the oldest person to be nominated for the Best Actress Oscar) descend through the stations of the cross starting with a stroke, going through partial paralysis, to the inability to walk, falls, incontinence, a ... Read more »
Anaconda
We were both in the mood for a brainless action movie, and this was on. We could hardly have done better. The brainless part, I mean. It stars Jennifer Lopez before she was J Lo, and Jon Voight, who follows in the tradition of Captain Ahab in Read more »
Anand
I’d better do two reviews here:
If you are Indian, and a fan of “Bollywood” movies … GO SEE THIS MOVIE!
If you are not … AVOID IT LIKE LEPROSY!
We managed precisely 37 minutes before we had to shut it down. … and yet, at the IMDb ... Read more »
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
I was looking forward to this. The reviews were good. After 30 minutes, my breaking point for comedy, I’d laughed once, smiled a couple of times. Hit the eject button, thought it over, and tried the bloopers. Not even the bloopers were funny. This could have been wickedly amusing if it weren’t so cartoonish, if it had been just a little smarter. Instead it goes for broad humor, ... Read more »
And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
In 1914 a movie studio (in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the movie capital of the world!) contracted with Pancho Villa to film his revolution. Unfortunately (according to this movie, which is based on fact but probably takes some liberties) the real stuff wasn’t exciting, the ... Read more »
And the Oscar Goes To …
You can’t really cover the history of the Oscars in a couple of hours, but this production of TCM does a pretty good job of hitting some of the highlights and lowlights. There are good interviews with the likes of Annette Bening, George Clooney, Ellen Burstyn, Cher, Billy Crystal, Jane Fonda, Tom Hanks, and Whoopi Goldberg about what it’s like to win or lose an Oscar, or to host the show.