The Greatest Showman

I love musicals. Hugh Jackman is a terrifically talented singer and dancer. (I hope he’s making a damn fortune from that Wolverine nonsense.) P.T. Barnum is a great subject for a musical. The production design is outstanding. The singing and dancing from the rest of the cast is fine. The music is rousing. So I kept asking myself, why am I not having a better time?

I think it was ... Read more »

Green Book

Oh, brother. Aside from announcing the wrong Best Picture award at the 2016 ceremony (wrong from the balloting, anyway; La La Land was a much better movie than Moonlight), this is the most recent huge controversy at the Oscars.

I’ve never really liked Spike Lee. Don’t get me wrong, he has made some ... Read more »

The Green Butchers

Two apprentice butchers, both big-time losers, open their own shop. Nobody comes, until they accidentally lock a guy in the meat locker and he dies. Naturally they are well-equipped to dispose of a body, but they take the extra step of selling the meat as “Chicky-wicky.” It proves so popular they have to get more … (There are two schools of thought as to the taste of human meat. One ... Read more »

Green For Danger

If I had remembered the title of this film after we started watching it, I couldn’t have actually guessed whodunit, but it would have been pretty clear howdunit. The clue is green. This was based on a popular novel of the day by Christianna Brand, who wrote a lot of books with the character of Inspector Cockrill, and also children’s books about Nurse Matilda, who for some reason ... Read more »

Green Mansions

Sometimes a project seems so misbegotten you wonder why somebody didn’t see it. This was based on a 1904 novel by William Henry Hudson that for some reason was a perennial favorite with readers. Maybe it was a good read, but the synopsis I read sounds pretty foolish. Hudson was primarily an ornithologist, known for his books on the fauna of South America, among other things.

This is ... Read more »

The Green Mile

Here’s one more proof that Stephen King doesn’t need to scare you with hobgoblins or gobhoblins or evil supernatural clowns. In fact, I would venture to say that he does his best work when he avoids all the phony evil of such and sticks to the evil in the human heart, and to a story with little to no fantasy horror theme. I submit to you Stand By Me, and Read more »

Green Zone

Paul Greengrass directed some amazing films, including United 93 and the second and third Bourne movies. This one did many of the right things, but it didn’t quite connect with me. It’s a political film, and I applied my sure-fire formula for political movies: If the Wall Street Journal hates it, then the movie is truthful. At ... Read more »

The Grey

It wasn’t reviewed all that well, but with Liam Neeson in it I just had to take a look. The first half hour was very, very good, with one of the best and most harrowing plane crashes I’ve ever seen. It’s a terrible one, into some remote region of Alaska, and most of the load of oil workers die on impact. A few more die later, and we are left with seven who have to figure out how to ... Read more »

Grey Gardens

An 80-year-old woman lives with her 58-year-old daughter in a few filthy rooms of a rotting 28-room mansion. They share it with a lot of mangy cats, raccoons and possums in the attic (which they feed), and, no doubt, rats and mice scrabbling in the walls. Both are named Edith Beale, Big Edie and Little Edie. Little Edie has been here for 20 years, but will be leaving soon (she tells us ... Read more »

Grey Gardens

Yes, I agree, it’s a fascinating story … but that fascinating? Consider: There was the original 1975 documentary by the Maysles Brothers. In 2001 Rufus Wainwright wrote a song entitled “Grey Gardens.” Then in 2006 there was an award-winning musical … which still boggles my mind; it has to be the unlikeliest subject for a musical since ... Read more »