Pompeii

… in which we learn, among many other things we never needed to see again … that no matter how thick the falling debris, it never harms the hero or the bad guy in any way … that the sidekick or the hero will always pause in the middle of a crisis to rescue one little girl among thousands who has lost her mother … further, that the sidekick will die a glorious death shortly before the hero ... Read more »

Ponyo

First, there can be no denying that Hayao Miyazaki is a genius, one of the best animators who ever lived. Before this one I’ve only seen Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, both masterpieces. I think I’ll see more.

Second, as I’ve said elsewhere, I doubt I will never be a fan of the Japanese anime style. It’s just a prejudice of ... Read more »

Popeye

Saw a copy of this at Goodwill for $2.99. Thought, written by Jules Feiffer, directed by Robert Altman, starring Robin Williams. Could it possibly be as bad as I remembered?

Well … yes. That bad. And it’s funny, because the individual elements are very, very good, with two exceptions. The songs, by Harry Nilsson, almost universally suck. (I did think “Large,” which Shelley Duvall ... Read more »

Portrait of Jenny

It’s a classic, but not one that really held a lot of attraction for me. It’s all a little too solemn, too reverent. Jenny is Jennifer Jones, who appears to have come unstuck in time, a little like Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. She first appears to Joseph Cotton, a struggling and not-too-talented artist, at the age of about twelve. She has ... Read more »

Poseidon

Here’s something really rare: A re-make that’s actually better than the original. The Poseidon Adventure (1972) was what really got the “disaster movie” vogue rolling, though Airport was two years earlier. For a while they were the hottest thing in Hollywood, pretty much culminating in The Towering Inferno. ... Read more »

The Poseidon Adventure

The granddaddy of disaster films, and one I still remember fondly.

The Poseidon Adventure

At the time, the capsizing of the Poseidon was one of the greatest, most amazing sequences ever filmed. The whole movie was sold by a trailer that showed part of it, and it just stunned us all. The ballroom set was built with huge forklifts on one side, so that the whole thing could be tilted as much as 30 degrees. I’d like to have seen that. Then the whole set ... Read more »

The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom

I’d been hearing about this one for years, and I can tell you it is all it was cracked up to be.

First, the director, Michael Ritchie. He went on a streak beginning with Downhill Racer in 1969, one of the best sports movies ever made. Then he made The Candidate, one of the best political movies, and Read more »

The Post

Here is a very sad one to watch. It concerns the theft by Daniel Ellsberg and publication by the New York Times of what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. This was a massive study of the Vietnam War, commissioned by the Department of Defense and labeled Top Secret, because it revealed that Robert McNamara and others knew the war ... Read more »

The Post-Impressionists – Klimt

This is one of a series, an academic look at the great gilder and leader of the Vienna Secession, back when art was controlled by a lot of stuffy traditionalists who pretty much told you what you could paint and couldn’t paint … sort of like Rudy Giuliani vs. Robert Mapplethorpe, come to think of it. Klimt was a well-known public figure but rather mysterious. There don’t ... Read more »