Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Okay, okay, okay. I decided I’d make an effort to lighten up after my review of the first in this series. Not that I still don’t hate, hate, hate that movie. Just that I would try to go into this one deliberately not seeing the hero as Sherlock Holmes, and that guy by his side as not Doctor Watson. Hard, but not impossible, I told myself. Could it work?

I ... Read more »

Sherlock, Jr.

Not one of Buster Keaton’s best features, which, as I’ve said before, merely means it is very, very, very good. He is an aspiring detective and works as a projectionist in a nickelodeon. The best part by far is when he drops off to sleep and imagines himself stepping into the screen. Every time the scene changes he is still in his original position, which leads to lots of complications, ... Read more »

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

I’m far from a John Wayne fan, but in the right part, he’s hard to beat. This is part of the John Ford “Cavalry Trilogy,” the only one in color, and it’s a doozy. The Monument Valley has never looked so good in saturated Technicolor. They also used some camera tricks to make it come even more alive. Wayne is a retiring cavalry officer, and all he wants to do is prevent an Indian war with ... Read more »

Shaun of the Dead

One of the best spoofs I’ve seen in a while. What if zombies invaded London … and nobody noticed? Shaun doesn’t notice, anyway, not for a long time. After all, what do zombies do? Shamble, stare vacantly, moan from time to time. Not all that different from a regular day. The main characteristic of zombies, other than their unfortunate habit of killing and eating live people, is that ... Read more »

Shattered Glass

Excellent story based on fact, of one of the most egregious examples of the rash of lying reporters we’ve heard of in recent years. The guy seems positively pathological, because he was not untalented, but he yearned to be the golden boy so much that he went from merely embellishing his stories to making them up completely. It had me on the edge of my seat as Glass’s lies were peeled back ... Read more »

A Shark Tale

Incredible colors and textures and flexibility in these bodies and faces. I was most taken with a pair of Rastafarian jellyfish. A lot of funny one-liners, many of them based on our knowledge of The Godfather. (“You’ll be sleepin’ wit’ da fishes. Da dead fishes.”) Staggering visual imagination … but not much else. The story is a dead fish. Some good music. ... Read more »

Shall We Dance

A total trifle, for when you’re in the mood for something that won’t strain your brain. A lawyer is suffering a mid-life crisis and, instead of boffing his younger secretary or whatever, decides to learn to dance. The only tension is how his wife will react to it, because he’s so uptight he doesn’t tell her, he sneaks around. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. The key to a movie like ... Read more »

The Seven-Ups

Here is a crackerjack cop thriller with another excellent performance by Roy Scheider and what I think of as the New York Mob Ensemble, which is about a dozen actors who were in just about every wiseguy film from The Godfather up to “The Sopranos.” A lot of familiar faces whose names you don’t know. But it owes its best scene to one guy you probably don’t know, but have seen: Bill Hickman. ... Read more »

The Seven Year Itch

It’s hard to believe, but I had never seen this one. It’s a Billy Wilder comedy, and I love Wilder, have seen almost everything he ever made, in America anyway. It’s based on a hit Broadway play that ran over 1,000 performances. But the code of the day meant the sexual situations and innuendo had to be toned down considerably, much to Wilder’s annoyance. Tom Ewell managed to get cast in ... Read more »

Seven Pounds

There’s not really much I would want to say about this movie that I could say without issuing a SPOILER WARNING right up front. I suspect you’ll have a pretty good idea what’s really going on here by at least the halfway point. I did, a little earlier than that. And I was right, though I may not have known all the details. I mean, what ... Read more »