Dinner at Eight

This is one of my favorite social comedies. It’s based on a play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, screenplay by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz (who wrote Citizen Kane, no matter what Orson Welles might tell you), directed by the legendary George Cukor. It reminds me of Grand Hotel from the previous year, in that it takes a ... Read more »

The Dirty Dozen

There is a select handful of World War II movies that never show a battle and still manage to be really great. There are based-on-fact ones like The Great Escape, and there are made-up ones like Operation Crossbow, The Guns of Navarone, and The Eagle Has Landed. They operate like heist movies, which I love, ... Read more »

Dirty Harry

They originally wanted John Wayne, or Steve McQueen, or Robert Mitchum, or Frank Sinatra, fer cryin’ out loud. Can you imagine any of them delivering Harry’s famous line: “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?” I can’t. Of course, no one knew how popular it was going to be. In retrospect any of those action heroes must have looked like ... Read more »

Dirty Pretty Things

I’ve now seen Audrey Tautou in four movies, and she was excellent in all of them. In fact two of them (Amelie, and He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not) are among the best films I’ve seen in years. See all of them.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

This remake of the 1964 movie Bedtime Story is one of those rare examples of a remake of a damn good film that is even better than the original. Way better, in fact.

Lawrence Jameson (David Niven/Michael Caine) is a suave, sophisticated Englishman living in a super-swanky town on the French Riviera. He makes his big, Read more »

Dirty Work

Laurel and Hardy Two-reeler. Just as you know that if L&H get a job whitewashing a fence they are going to end up white from head to toe, you know that when they become chimney sweeps they will be black. Lots of good gags, culminating in a mad scientist who invents a rejuvenating formula that turns a duck into an egg and Ollie into a chimp.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

There are so many plot twists in this movie that I really can’t discuss most of it without ruining the surprises. I think there are at least six, maybe even seven, surprises, reversals of fortune, gotcha moments, and the like. The good news is that most of them work well, and I had no trouble buying them. There is one twist at the last that bothered me, involving a badly wounded man making ... Read more »

The Disaster Artist

Here we go again. Another film that is a critical darling, won a lot of awards, and is a stinking piece of shit. I mean that sincerely. There is nothing to like in this little turd of a movie. Not a single element. Not a single frame. It sucks, from beginning to end.

It’s about a man named Tommy Wiseau and the making of what many people call the worst film ever made: Read more »

The Dish

There is a brand of humor that I think of as distinctly Australian. I can’t easily define it, but I know it when I see it. It’s in films like Muriel’s Wedding, and Danny Deckchair. It’s wry, and it’s understated, and I love it. This movie is not a knockabout comedy, and in fact it is quite touching in places. It is possibly the most ... Read more »