The Big Shave

(6 minutes) One of those films that have received a lot of acclaim, and leave me a bit mystified, like the works of Kenneth Anger, to which it has been compared. (I attended a showing of Anger’s works hosted by the man himself while attending a film class at Michigan State. I found them puzzling—I was 18, fresh out of small-town Texas—but interesting.) It consists solely of a man shaving. ... Read more »

The Big Short

What a fantastic movie! You would think (or I would, anyway) that the least interesting and most impenetrable subject you could ever make a movie about would be the Republican real estate collapse of 2008. I mean, finance at the level they are talking about is much like quantum physics to me. That is, I can sort of understand it when I’m reading about it, but ask me about it the next day ... Read more »

The Big Sleep

I know I risk controversy by saying I think Humphrey Bogart was the second-best Philip Marlowe to appear on the silver screen. My personal favorite is Robert Mitchum in Farewell, My Lovely from 1975. It’s certainly open to debate, and if you prefer Bogey and Bacall I won’t argue with you. But to me, Bogart’s Marlowe never quite achieved ... Read more »

Big Trouble

There are three Florida writers of comic novels that I am aware of. Tim Dorsey’s books are the wildest, with his character Serge Storms killing half a dozen bad people in ingenious and appropriate ways in each book. But I don’t think his stories would translate well to the screen. So far, no one has tried. Carl Hiaasen is probably my favorite. I’ve been reading him for a long time (and ... Read more »

Bigger Than Life

Hard to remember that not all that long ago, cortisone was a “miracle drug.” I’ve had cortisone injections into my knees. I wasn’t aware that it can turn you in a paranoid bipolar megalomaniac, but apparently it can. This movie stars James Mason as a man with a disease that will kill him soon, and can only be treated by the new drug. But they aren’t as cautious as they might be about the ... Read more »

Billion Dollar Brain

A billion dollars didn’t buy you much of a computer, by today’s standards. This one used huge spools of jerky magnetic tape (!) and cardboard punch cards (!!!!). I imagine it had about as much computing power as your average microwave oven these days. But it filled a gigantic set, and Honeywell was proud to put its name on the side of the units. Well, why not? It was state of the art at ... Read more »

Billy Liar

I’ve thought I should see this film for a long time, but something kept putting me off. Maybe I got the wrong impression, maybe I thought it was going to be real serious, hadn’t realized that it’s mostly a comedy. And now it’s fifty years old.
It was directed by John Schlesinger, one of the informal group from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s known as either the “British New Wave,” the ... Read more »

The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings

The Negro Leagues in their various complicated incarnations were one more shameful Jim Crow remnant of slavery, made necessary by many factors, including the implacable opposition to integrated teams by the scumbag first Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Kenesaw Mountain “Cocksucker” Landis. (I made up the nickname, but he deserves it. He also banished Shoeless Joe Jackson to the bleachers ... Read more »

Bird Box

The idea is that some mysterious “entities,” never explained or shown, have suddenly popped up all over the world. They are so horrific that if you even glance at one of them, you will go insane and kill yourself and/or others. (Except for psychopaths, who love them and want everyone else to see them, too.)

It’s a goofy premise, of course, but if you can just go ... Read more »

The Birdcage

Remaking a foreign language film in English is not always a bad idea. However, just off the top of my head I can think of only one remake that was as good as, and possibly even a wee bit better, than the original, and that is Sorcerer, the English version of the French film The Wages of Fear. More often the ... Read more »