Movie Reviews
Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
I’ve never read the book (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman) and probably never will. Someone in the movie describes it as “A postmodernist novel from before the time there was any modern to be post about.” It was written and published between 1759 and 1769, in nine volumes, and it has been generally agreed that it is ... Read more »
The Triplets of Belleville
We have just seen the best movie we’ve seen all year. It’s The Triplets of Belleville, and it may be the best animated movie ever. I wait a few years to put movies on my “best of all time” list, but this one just crashed into my head. The first five minutes staggered me, left me with my jaw on the fucking floor, and it just got better from there. It is impossible to ... Read more »
Sitting Pretty
Robert Young and Maureen O’Hara get top billing here, but the picture belongs to Clifton Webb, whose portrait of live-in “nanny” Mr. Belvedere was funny enough to win him an Oscar nomination and two sequels, which I haven’t seen. Belvedere describes his occupation as “genius,” and you really can’t fault him. Prissy and condescending, he proves to be able to do almost anything, the least of ... Read more »
The Trip to Boutiful
Geraldine Page was nominated for an Oscar 8 times, and won with this, her last shot, and died shortly afterwards. The script was adapted by Horton Foote, from his own play. You may know him as one of the finest writers in Hollywood, who got his start on the stage and on TV. He won Oscars for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. So I hoped to like this a lot. And I did like it … ... Read more »
Sita Sings the Blues
Finding a movie that shows you something brand new, something you’ve never seen before, is sort of like winning the lottery for $250,000,000. (Except for the part about getting rich and paying off your debts and never having to work again and buying a yacht and a private island and a Rolls-Royce and a mansion and hiring servants …okay, it’s not like winning the ... Read more »
The Trip
Hey, man, groove on this weird groovy shit, man. It’s fuckin’ groovy! Did we really say “groovy” as often as the people in this movie do? Yes, I’m afraid we did. Forgive us, young folks.
This movie really sucks. Sorry, but there it is. Hollywood—even the bottom of the barrel Hollywood, in the form of Roger Corman—never really understood the ’60s ... Read more »
Tremors II: Aftershocks
These two movies remind me of the Alien/Aliens duo in many ways.
1) Both concern monsters that are
2) unseen at first and are
3) out to eat you.
4) The second film gives you more monsters than the first one did.
5) The first films are groundbreaking (in the case of Tremors, literally), inventive, and ...
Read more »
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Four 16-year-old girls, close friends practically from birth, discover a pair of magical jeans that somehow fit all of them, the tall and thin, the short and chubby. They are parting for the summer, and agree to mail them to each other so each will have equal access to the magic.
Given that plot outline, I expected a fairly dumb result. All of them will get handsome boyfriends, ... Read more »
Tremors
One of the very best monster movies. That’s an admittedly short list, but this movie is damn near perfect. In an SF story you get one unlikely or impossible premise, and here it is that gigantic mutant earthworms could travel underground faster than a man can run. With that out of the way, the rest of the plot proceeds logically and with great attention to detail. Most of it takes place ... Read more »
A Single Man
Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the stories that later became the musical Cabaret. The novel was one of the first mainstream books that dealt openly with homosexuality, and played a part in the rise of the Gay Liberation movement. It’s a day in the life of a gay college professor who has lost his younger lover and sees no reason to go on. He ... Read more »