And the Ship Sails On

Federico Fellini was incapable of composing an uninteresting scene, framing a dull shot, shooting a single frame of film that wasn’t fascinating to look at. But he sure could make some stinkers. Beautiful, ravishing stinkers, but stinkers nonetheless. Satyricon, ... Read more »

And Then There Were None

Wow! First thing, if we’re going to make a movie out of this book, we have to lose that title! I gather that the, ahem, “N-word” is not such a linguistic bomb in England as it is here, or at least it wasn’t in 1939, when the book was published. Even back then, in America, that word was not used in polite company except in the South, where I grew up.

I have never read the book. It ... Read more »

An Andalusian Dog

In 1928 Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí made this 16-minute film, and it rocked the world. It has recently come out on DVD, along with all sort of documentaries and commentaries by experts on Surrealism. We didn’t watch ... Read more »

The Anderson Tapes

This movie shouldn’t be as obscure as it is. I loved it when it was new, and not only does it hold up, it turns out to be amazingly prescient. Sean Connery is a thief who decides to take down this entire apartment building in one operation, six luxury flats filled with treasure. But from his very first move he is recorded and ... Read more »

Angel Face

It sometimes seems to me that every B&W movie made between about 1938 and 1958 that wasn’t a comedy, musical, western, or war story is classified as film noir by somebody. This is one, but my definition is a little stricter. I think a noir film should have some connection with sleaziness, the streets, the underworld, the underclass. Here, we have a working-class guy caught up in ... Read more »

Angels & Demons

This one starts out with a lot of strikes against it, and only one interesting element: Tom Hanks. He’s usually worth seeing. As for the strikes …
Before the story even begins, the Pope has been assassinated and four Cardinals have been abducted. The Cardinals will be killed, one every hour, beginning at 8 PM. At midnight Vatican City and much of Rome will be destroyed by an ... Read more »

Angels in America

A two-parter from HBO, 6 hours long in total. This is the acclaimed saga about AIDS, set in Reagan America 1985. It’s an acting extravaganza, with Al Pacino, Meryl ... Read more »

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 »

Animal House

I happened to be living in Eugene, Oregon when this movie was shooting and when it opened. Not that I was aware of it at the time, though I wish I had been. It would have been fun to be an extra at the climactic parade, which was done in Cottage Grove, a few miles down I-5. But when we saw it, it was fun to identify the locations. Most of them were on the campus of the University of ... Read more »

Animal Kingdom

One of the bleaker films you would do well to avoid, unless you really dig this sort of thing. It got rave reviews, and I guess it deserved them, particularly Jacki Weaver as the smiling head of a criminal family of people I’d rather jump into a pit of vipers than spend any time with. A young man, her grandson, calls Granny “Smurf” Cody to calmly report that her daughter, his mother, has ... Read more »