Movie Reviews
The Secret World of Arrietty
The Borrowers was a series of children’s books by Mary Norton, the first one coming out in 1952. It was about tiny people living in normal people’s houses and “borrowing” stuff to use as furniture, to eat, etc. Since, as far as I can determine, they never put anything back, the most appropriate title might have been The Thieves, but I ... Read more »
The Secret Lives of Dentists
A low-key, wonderfully acted small movie about a family in crisis because the husband suspects his wife of infidelity. I enjoyed it a lot.
A Secret
I guess there are six million Holocaust stories, and it sometimes feels that I’ve seen five million of them. I’m not trying in any way to be flippant here, nor am I saying it’s time to stop making movies about the Holocaust. That should never happen. Maybe the thing I’m trying to articulate in trying to figure out why this well-made story just didn’t grab me is that, if you Read more »
Secondhand Lions
Maybe Michael Caine and Robert Duvall just wanted to work together, I don’t know. I can’t find any other way to account for casting Caine as one of two crotchety old Americans living out in the boonies. Caine is one of my favorite actors, but a convincing American accent is beyond him. This is not a bad movie, but not really memorable.
Sealed Cargo
I’m a big fan of movies produced by the studio system from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, but I’m also the first to admit they can be more than a bit formulaic. They discovered what the audience wanted—romance, even if it’s implausible or unnecessary, good-looking people in peril, and most of all, a happy ending, even if it made no sense—and they gave it to them, year after year. So when I sit ... Read more »
Seabiscuit
A big Hollywood movie in the best sense of that term, based on a story that could have been imagined in Hollywood, but happens to have been true.
The Sea Wolf
A really good sea adventure which relies for its power almost totally on the performance of Edward G. Robinson as Wolf Larsen, a fascinating figure who is a self-taught scholar and philosopher, a smuggler, a sadist, and many other things. He rolls right over this movie and completely overshadows Ida Lupino and John Garfield. This Jack London novel has been filmed no less than 13 times, but ... Read more »
The Sea is Watching
The movie takes place in a geisha house, and is taken from an unproduced script by one of my two favorite directors of all time, Akira Kurosawa. But it’s a minor piece.
The Sea Hawk
Nobody could buckle a swash as well as Errol Flynn, and this is one of the very best swashbuckling sea adventures. It was directed by Michael Curtiz, who may be the most under-rated guy in Hollywood from this era. Maybe it’s because there is no trademark “Michael Curtiz” film. Yes, he is well known for directing classics like Casablanca and action movies like ... Read more »