Movie Reviews
Titles starting with S
Sherlock, Jr.
Not one of Buster Keaton’s best features, which, as I’ve said before, merely means it is very, very, very good. He is an aspiring detective and works as a projectionist in a nickelodeon. The best part by far is when he drops off to sleep and imagines himself stepping into the screen. Every time the scene changes he is still in his original position, which leads to lots of complications, ... Read more »
Sherlock (Third Season)
“The Empty Hearse.” Oh please!!! A bungee cord? Sherlock bouncing down and then up, crashing through a window? Remember, Watson watched him fall, he saw the whole thing before the cyclist knocked him down. And he didn’t see the bungee cord? If this was their explanation for how Sherlock staged his own death … well, I was about to toss ... Read more »
SherryBaby
Poor Sherry. She’s one of those people who go through life always a step or two behind other people, and behind where she’s trying hard to be. She’s not a bad person, but everything she does is just a little bit … off. She is inappropriate, she has a quick temper that doesn’t serve her well, she is impatient, she tries too hard, she is self-centered. She is a ... Read more »
Shine a Light
First off, let me say that I am not a fan of concert movies, even if they are directed by Martin Scorsese. Lee doesn’t agree with me. She has fond memories of The Last Waltz. I saw it, but can’t remember anything about it except that it happened in Winterland, where I saw a few concerts in the ‘60s. The only concert film I can recall really loving is Read more »
The Shining
Before one even gets to the movie, one has to mention what I’m certain is the finest trailer ever made for any film. Two elevator doors in a hotel lobby. Clunky furniture. Credits roll for one minute. Then … one of the doors opens and an ocean of blood flows out in super-slow-motion. Well, the audience I was with was totally stunned. I think a hit was ... Read more »
Ship Ahoy
I probably wouldn’t have bothered with this one if it had only the second- and third-billed performers, Red Skelton and Bert Lahr, even though I like both of them. It was the top-of-the-bill star that dragged me into this rather silly, completely routine wartime patriotic mess. Eleanor Powell is the only dancer that anyone has every seriously suggested was as good as or maybe ever Read more »
Ship of Fools
Stanley Kramer directed this long, sometimes ponderous movie from Katherine Anne Porter’s book, which she took 22 years to write. I’ve never read it, but it seems obvious that the screenwriter had to pick and choose among many stories, omitting some entirely. It’s an allegory, they say, about Nazism, set in 1933 on a voyage from Mexico to Bremerhaven. There are the usual characters—all of ... Read more »
Shock Corridor
Sometimes a movie transcends its B origins and offers more than just a sensationalistic plot. This is about a reporter who wants to solve a murder that happened in an insane asylum, and decides to pretend to be crazy so he can go inside and investigate. He works hard at this, rehearsing with a real psychiatrist, and manages to land himself in the loony bin. Naturally, it turns out to be a ... Read more »
A Shock to the System
Michael Caine is an executive with a wife (Swoosie Kurtz) he no longer loves, and soon he discovers that he’s been passed over for the job, which he needed to maintain his lifestyle, for a younger man. In the basement one day, trying to repair a short circuit in his house’s wiring, he gets a shock that knocks him on his ass … and seems to work a change in his outlook on life. It’s a “shock ... Read more »
Shoeshine
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has given out their Oscar Awards since 1929, but until 1947 no film made in another country had been honored. Then they started giving out Special Honorary Awards to films that were “primarily non-English-speaking.” They were not competitive, there was no slate of five nominees. The Academy members just selected one. It wasn’t until 1956 that ... Read more »