Royal Flash

Sir Harry Flashman (1822-1915) (VC, KCB, KCIE; Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur; U.S. Medal of Honor; San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class), is one of the most heroic figures imaginable, ending his career in the army with the rank of general. But this is how he describes himself in The Flashman Papers: “A scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a ... Read more »

Rubber

Out in the desert, a car pulls up from a long ways off. The trunk opens and a man in a sheriff’s suit get out and starts lecturing us about movies. A bus pulls up and a lot of people get out, then sit in chairs, bitching about various things. This will be the “audience.” Finally, an old tire out in the sand shivers and stands upright. It crushes various things, comes to a coke bottle it ... Read more »

Ruby Sparks

Calvin (Paul Dano: Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood) is a 29-year-old boy prodigy who wrote his generation’s The Catcher in the Rye ten years ago, and hasn’t been able to write anything since. He’s got tons of money, lives in the Hollywood Hills, and is desperately unhappy. He begins to dream of a woman (Zoe Kazan, ... Read more »

Rudy

When I was growing up in Texas, our home was not really a hotbed of sports viewing. Dad followed college football and some pro, liked to watch baseball with Dizzy Dean calling the plays, and that was about it. It being Texas, all my Friday nights were spent either at Bulldog Stadium or at an away football game, but I was there because I was in the band. Those were the days! I must have ... Read more »

Rules Don’t Apply

When someone doesn’t make a lot of movies, when there are gaps of several years between films, you have to wonder why they chose this project. Take Jane Fonda, for instance. There was a fifteen-year gap between Stanley and Iris in 1990 and the totally forgettable, really minor movie Monster-in-law in 2005. Why that film? Well, who the ... Read more »

The Ruling Class

I liked this much better when it was new. Peter O’Toole bought the rights to the play this was based on, and you can see why. He plays a man who inherits the title of 14th Earl of Gurney after #13, played wonderfully by Harry Andrews, accidentally hangs himself while dressed in a ballet tutu. (This was the first time I recall hearing of auto-erotic asphyxia, which was the cause of David ... Read more »

Rumor Has It …

The reviews really sucked, but the idea was so good we had to see for ourselves … to our sorrow.

Premise: A woman begins to suspect that her family is the Robinsons from the movie The Graduate. She’s right. The places you could go from there are almost endless, and this movie manages to pick only the stupid ones. Elaine is dead. Read more »

Run All Night

Here we have another mob story starring everyone’s favorite geriatric action hero, Liam Neeson. I have to say, he’s damn good at it, making even a dreary re-tread like Taken 3 at least watchable when he’s on-screen. This time he’s an over-the-hill hit man for Ed Harris’s gang. He and Ed were close, and Ed doesn’t have the heart to send him to the old hit man’s ... Read more »

Run, Fatboy, Run

Simon Pegg was the writer and star of one of my favorite comedies, Shaun of the Dead, and also the wildly crazy Hot Fuzz. This one is not quite on that level, but it’s funny as hell. He plays a man, Dennis, who has run away from his wedding to a woman who is pregnant with his child. Now he wants to win her back, but she’s found a new ... Read more »

Run Lola Run

One of my favorite small films. Lola (Franka Potente, the German girl from The Bourne Identity) has 20 minutes to get across town and save her boyfriend from being murdered by a gangster. Oh, and she has to find 100,000 marks along the way. This movie is an in-your-face explosion of action, and every editing trick in the book. Lola is running for most of it (and ... Read more »