Movie Reviews
Slam Dance
When somebody does stupid things in a movie I always ask myself if I would have done better in the same situation. I mean me, not some James Bond or Sam Spade or Jack Reacher. In other words, an ordinary guy thrown into a perilous situation not of my making, and me never having had to face life-or-death decisions outside of a book I’m reading or movie I’m seeing. If I’m honest with myself, ... Read more »
Skyfall
… is the ancestral estate of McBond, James McBond. I hadn’t known he had Scottish roots, but it seems they got that right. In fact, the screenwriter went to some pains to include some of the things that Ian Fleming revealed about the character, including the fact that his parents died when he was eleven. I was surprised when he arrived there at the ugly old house, which was short of being ... Read more »
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
We just spent a week in North Bend, Oregon, looking after Lee’s mom, who suffered a small stroke a while ago. I didn’t have a lot to do, so I did something I don’t do a lot of these days: went to see two movies in actual movie theaters. The first was De-Lovely, because I like musicals on the big screen. This was the second, and we caught the very first showing at ... Read more »
Skins
There is a small but growing genre of films about modern-day Indians, most of them heartfelt but maybe technically a bit deficient, because they are made on a shoestring budget, and maybe not the best acting, because a lot of amateurs or first-timers are used. If you don’t mind this (and I don’t, if it’s from the heart), this is a good one. A particularly good ending, which I will not ... Read more »
The Skin I Live In
Pedro Almodóvar is, as they say, the preeminent director in Spain, and he has a large international following. I haven’t seen many of his films, but of those I have seen, I’ve been intrigued. He’s made films in both Spanish and English, and some of them have enjoyed success on this side of the Atlantic, such as Volver and Broken ... Read more »
Skidoo
I found myself wondering if anything in the world has ever dated as fast as ‘60s (and into the ‘70s) movies about hippies, LSD, and the counterculture. I mean, these things became embarrassing relics between the time the bulb was switched on in the projector and the light hit the screen. Of course, in one sense they were dated the moment the shooting script was finalized, as no writer or ... Read more »
Tropic Thunder
This is far from a perfect comedy, but these days you take what you can get. Every time I thought it was going to totally lose it, they came up with something funny again and kept me watching. Some of the best stuff was right at the beginning—a good idea, to lead strongly and get me rooting for the picture. All three idiot actors in the “jungle war movie” scenario are introduced by ... Read more »
The Skeleton Key
Kate Hudson is tremendously appealing and was terrific in Almost Famous. Since then, she’s been in pretty much nothing but turkeys. She’d better start finding better roles in better movies, or she’s going to vanish.
This isn’t that part, nor that movie. It has its B-movie charms, and most of the drawbacks. I’ll allow a director two or three Read more »
Tropfest New York 2012
We had never heard of Tropfest. It seems it is the world’s largest festival for short films. When I say short, I mean short. The maximum running time is seven minutes, credits included. It began small in Sydney in 1993 and gradually expanded, sort of like Sundance. Now it’s a pretty big deal, having had festivals in Abu Dhabi, London, Berlin, Toronto, Bangkok, ... Read more »
Six Feet Under
(HBO) We followed our usual practice of waiting until the DVD came out to see this. It’s not really part of a plan, but it works out well. We usually don’t seek out new things to watch on TV; there’s not enough time in the day to watch all the stuff that people say is good. Thus, I personally never saw Cheers, Friends, Read more »