Movie Reviews
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet and silly fop, is actually the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, who has devoted himself to rescuing the aristocracy from the horrors of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Perhaps you saw the original, classic 1934 version with Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. (Or maybe Chuck Jones’ “The Scarlet Pumpernickel, starring Daffy Duck.) This is a lush, ... Read more »
The Scarecrow
Buster Keaton two-reeler. The first reel of this short is simply amazing. Two men share a small one-room house. It is filled with the most ingenious and comic labor-saving devices. Some of the shots must have needed a lot of takes to pull off, as they relied on not just perfect timing, but a lot of luck. I was roaring. The second half is not so inspired, but still funny. This is available ... Read more »
A Scanner Darkly
I was, frankly, stunned at how bad this movie was. Not a single thing worked. It was, famously, done with interpolated rotoscoping. The interpolated part is computer-generated; rotoscoping was invented by Max Fleischer in 1914 for his Koko the Clown movies. Here, it is a horrible distraction. Keanu Reeves’ beard looks like some awful fungus crawling all over his face. Many things ... Read more »
Saved!
This story is basically the same as we saw recently in Mean Girls, but at a “Christian” school. What it shows is that being blissed out on Jesus is no barrier at all to being the same kind of bitch queen bee we all remember from “real world” high schools. It is very funny, though it goes a little over the top at the end. The message: true Christian ... Read more »
Savages
Don Winslow is one of my very favorite writers. I know he’s not for everyone, because his stories often have extreme violence in them. But his characters, his settings, his plots … they’re as good as it gets. He doesn’t have a real series like the one-character writers, but he has revisited some of his characters now and then. He recently wrote a prequel to the book this one was based on, ... Read more »
The Savages
An actor’s field day, and a pretty good movie. (I hate the title, though. I expected it to be about savagery, but it’s just the name of the family. If there was some deeper, symbolic meaning, I missed it.) Two adult children have to take care of their father, who is descending into dementia. He was never a good father, they don’t like him, and he has warped their ability to have ... Read more »
The Tree of Life
This has to be the most polarizing movie of the last decade. Critics almost unanimously loved it. Viewers at the IMDb and Metacritic were almost evenly divided between those who gave it a 1 and those who gave it a 10. Very little middle ground. What’s the deal? I read a few of the 1s, thinking these were probably mouth-breathers for whom Green Lantern was ... Read more »
Transsiberian
Here is a competent and mostly believable thriller more in the Hitchcock mode than James Bond. There are no outrageous stunts, just a slow build-up of tension until it gets pretty tense indeed. Just about all the action takes place on the Transsiberian train from Beijing to Moscow, the longest train ride in the world. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer meet another couple, and you suspect ... Read more »
Transatlantic Tunnel
In 1972 Harry Harrison published a novel in Analog called A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (alternate title: Tunnel Through the Deeps). I remember liking it. I think it was an early example of the SF genre known as steampunk. These stories take place in alternate futures where steam power is still king, ... Read more »
Transamerica
Never having seen “Desperate Housewives,” I was not familiar with Felicity Huffman. In fact, looking through her credits, I realized I’ve never seen her in anything, in a part large enough to be noticed. So my first reaction was “Isn’t it nice that this pleasant but rather horse-faced woman with the odd voice found the perfect part for herself!” Imagine ... Read more »