The Whole Town’s Talking

Directed by John Ford. Here’s a rather nice role for Edward G. Robinson (real name, Emanuel Goldenberg), who was nothing like his gangster persona in so many films. Here, he’s a meek clerk who is a dead ringer for an actual gangster. He keeps getting mistaken for the bad guy, so much that the baddie eventually figures out a way to make that work for him in his dastardly pursuits. Some ... Read more »

Who’s That Knocking at My Door?

Somebody’s been going to film school and watching a lot of French Nouvelle Vague movies. Not that this is a bad thing, not at all, but if Martin Scorsese’s name were not on it, it would be easy to mistake this for Godard, Truffaut, or Resnais.

It has a tangled history. It is usually named as Scorsese’s first film (originally titled I ... Read more »

Wicker Park

You can’t really say much of anything about the plot of this movie, because it’s all about revelations, and because it’s so incredibly complicated that I have no idea if it really all adds up. I was interested in it as it unfolded, but only marginally. In retrospect, it seems the whole thing would have fallen apart without some pretty stupid behavior on the part of all involved. If the ... Read more »

The Widow

Kate Beckinsale seems to be known mostly for the six films in the Underworld franchise, which we haven’t seen. Since it’s apparently about vampires, we probably won’t see them. Her appearance here makes it easy to believe she can do an action film. She has a physical presence that’s hard to imitate. You either have it or you don’t. This ... Read more »

The Wife

SPOILER WARNING. I will be revealing the Big Secret.

As I write this it is about 23 hours until those little gold statues are handed out, in what seems likely to be the most fucked-up Oscars ever. The smart money says that Lady Gaga, Olivia Colman, Melissa McCarthy, and Yalitza Aparicio needn’t show up, as this is finally the year for Glenn Close to win, after six previous ... Read more »

Wild

Reese Witherspoon is very good here as a woman who has messed up her life badly, and as a means to “find herself,” goes looking along the Pacific Crest Trail. This is a path of misery, sweat, tears, blisters, and all manner of other discomfort that stretches from Mexico to Canada through some of the most dangerous terrain in North America. She doesn’t actually walk the whole thing, but ... Read more »

The Wild Bunch

My favorite western of all time. Picture this: Bill Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan, and Ben Johnson. My god, they’d plow through The Magnificent Seven like Panzers through Belgium. They’d eat John Wayne and Randolph Scott for lunch, and chew up Clint Eastwood for an appetizer.

The tension in this film starts right with ... Read more »

Wild Hogs

We usually approach the second feature with a lot of trepidation, but my mom and sister liked this, so … and what do you know? It’s funny! Silly and predictable, sure, and far from a classic, but it earns its laughs as long as all you expect is a competent entertainment. Lord knows those are rare enough these days.