Movie Reviews
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 »
How to Beat the High Co$t of Living
It’s a good idea, that really should have been funnier than it is. Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, and Jessica Lange are housewives who are all in financial trouble for one reason or another. They hatch a scheme to rob a “money globe” filled with real bills, a promotional stunt for a large shopping center. I can guarantee you that a very big percentage of the residents of Eugene, Oregon, ... Read more »
Orange is the New Black
It got great reviews, so we decided to give it a try, though I admit I was dubious. Premise: A former debutante yuppie gets sentenced to fifteen months in federal prison for a crime she committed ten years before, during her wild youth. I figured this would be a Private Benjamin comedy, with the clueless rich girl complaining because no one left a mint on her ... Read more »
Girl 6
Spike Lee is not the most consistent director around. He has made some amazingly good movies in his career, both fiction and documentary. And he’s made some that just fall flat. This is one of those. The subject is phone sex, and I just didn’t believe a single scene. I’ve never called such a service, but I think it’s generally agreed that the sexy female voice on the other end is quite ... Read more »
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Once again the spirit of the famous James Thurber short story has been violated. It starts off okay, with today’s amazing visual effects used well for Walter’s daydreaming fantasies. But then, for some reason, it takes Ben Stiller off on real adventures, from Greenland to Iceland to the farthest reaches of Afghanistan. It takes place in some alternate universe where Read more »
The Book Thief
First, let’s get to the one thing I really didn’t like about this film. It is narrated by Death. Yeah, you know the dude, dressed all in black with a big scythe over his shoulder (though I’ve heard he has recently been seen operating a combine harvester). We were about halfway through before I was sure that’s who it was; before that I was wondering when we would see the character of the ... Read more »
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 Power of Few
This was an experimental film that was supposed to be interactive, reaching all the way back to 2006. You went online and helped in the casting and the editing, somehow. I’ve never been much taken with interactive stuff, going all the way back to some paperbacks that included multiple endings. To me, if you have a story to tell, tell it. We watched the first two segments and it was clear ... Read more »
Before Midnight
Possibly the final installment of the brilliant series of films that began with Before Sunrise (1995) and continued nine years later with Before Sunset (2004) … but there’s nothing except fatal accident or illness or disinterest on the part of one of the creators to prevent there being a fourth movie in another nine years.
In ... Read more »
Inside Llewyn Davis
As Llewyn Davis puts it, “If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” I don’t know about the getting old part—if I never hear “500 Miles” again I’d never miss it—but you get the idea. There was a time in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s when “folk music” was inexplicably popular. Yes, I know folk is still around, but the term covers a wider territory, both ... Read more »