Into the Storm

Here’s an excellent performance by Irishman Brendan Gleeson as Winston Churchill that seems to me to have been wasted on a 100-minute feature when the story cries out for a 4- or 5-part mini-series. It begins in 1940 with the invasion of Belgium, the resignation of Neville Chamberlain and the new, wartime government formed by Churchill, and ends with his electoral defeat only weeks after ... Read more »

Into the Storm

I truly do believe that if a herd of rhinos came thundering down the street toward a herd of teenagers these days, most if not all of them would hold their cell phones held high, jostling each other to get the best shot. And I’m talking about the rhinos; I’m certain the teens would stand their ground and get run down.) This is how people are viewing the universe ... Read more »

Into the Woods

Shortly into the New York run, the original cast made this excellent recording of the stage play for PBS. (I was there to see the play with the original cast. The marquee was draped with a giant pair of inflatable legs, for the dead giant.) I loved it, as so many people did. The play is about as audience-friendly and accessible as anything Sondheim did in his later career … which is to ... Read more »

Into the Woods

Yes! They nailed it! Meryl Streep replaces Bernadette Peters as the witch, Emily Blunt is the baker’s wife, Anna Kendrick is Cinderella, and Johnny Depp is the pedophile Big Bad Wolf. (Yes, a pedophile in a Disney movie!) The other names are not as familiar, but everyone can sing well.

Is there any goddam thing Meryl Streep can’t do? I knew she could sing (C&W in Read more »

The Intouchables

You’ve seen this movie before. A disabled man (quadriplegic from a parasailing accident) finds a friend and rediscovers some zest in life. Only the details change. This one’s in France, “based on a true story,” the man is very, very rich, the new attendant is a black layabout named Driss from a huge Senegalese family, only interested in collecting his welfare check, and then he’s hired, ... Read more »

Intruder in the Dust

A black man is arrested for shooting a white man in the back, in Oxford, Mississippi. The question “Did he do it?” is never even asked, not even by the man who is going to be defending him. Not only is he black, he is uppity. The whole town gathers for the great fun of the lynching. Will they hang him, or burn him alive? Will the sheriff resist, or just throw open the cell doors? Get your ... Read more »

The Invasion

Four movies are reviewed here, from 1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007. The article was written in 2007.

We just saw The Invasion, the fourth iteration of a Collier’s Magazine story by Jack Finney that later became a novel and then one of the most well-remembered creepy movies from the pulpish days of 1950s science fiction. While watching it I was seized by a ... Read more »

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Four movies are reviewed here, from 1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007. The article was written in 2007

We just saw The Invasion, the fourth iteration of a Collier’s Magazine story by Jack Finney that later became a novel and then one of the most well-remembered creepy movies from the pulpish days of 1950s science fiction. While watching it I was seized by a ... Read more »

The Invention of Lying

How’s this for a Coca-Cola commercial: “It’s mostly brown water and sugar, but it doesn’t taste so bad. Of course, it tends to make your children obese.” Or on the side of a bus, for Pepsi: FOR WHEN THEY’RE OUT OF COKE. This is advertising in the world created by Ricky Gervais, where no one can lie, where they don’t even understand the concept of lying, it’s as ... Read more »