Movie Reviews
Titles starting with A
Armored Car Robbery
There’s a title for you, not overly dramatic but straight to the point. Like a listing in a textbook or something. And that’s exactly what this movie is, straight to the point. It’s only 67 minutes long, and it wastes none of them. There’s not a lot of time spent on characterization, but it’s not really needed. There’s the four tough guys pulling the ... Read more »
Army of Shadows
(France/Italy, 1969) An amazing film about the French Resistance. I’ve seen plenty of movies where the heroic fighters of the Resistance played a part. They blow up trains, they assassinate Nazi leaders, they smuggle weapons into France, they cause all sorts of trouble. I salute them. They were genuine heroes, refusing to ... Read more »
The Arrival
A better than average SF paranoia film that loses it somewhere near the end, as so many do. But for a while there, it was pleasantly like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with one man knowing a terrible secret that he can’t convince anyone else is true. The aliens can look like us, so you don’t know who to trust. The ... Read more »
Arrival
Well, Klaatu Barada Nicto, y’all! I know there have been other films since The Day the Earth Stood Still back in 1951 where aliens come to Earth and do not intend to eat us or enslave us, and I could probably think of some if I tried, but the fact is they are greatly outnumbered by films like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. This is the ... Read more »
Artemisia
If you’ve ever wondered why women are so lightly represented in the history of art until the 20th Century, the reason is simple. They weren’t allowed to participate. There is no way of ever knowing how many works of genius the human race never got to see because of this stupidity. Artemisia Gentileschi was the ... Read more »
Arthur
It turns out that a movie about a cheerful drunk is not as funny to me now as it was the first time I saw it. Don’t get me wrong, it is still damn funny, but the first time I remember all but rolling in the aisles. Our attitudes about drunks are a little different today. Dudley Moore’s maniacal laugh is still a killer, and some of his lame jokes (which he, and no one else, finds ... Read more »
The Artist
I loved it. From the first frame right up to the end. But does it deserve its Best Picture Oscar? Well, I can’t say right now, because I haven’t seen all of them. It’s the best of the ones I have seen. And from what I know of those I haven’t seen, I don’t think it’s likely this one will be pushed aside in my ranking. A lot of the others sound reasonably ... Read more »
As you Like It
I’ve liked all of Kenneth Branagh‘s Shakespeare movies, even the one the critics all hated, the musical version of Love’s Labour’s Lost, where he took considerable liberties by adding musical numbers from the great songwriters of the 1930s ... Read more »
The Asphalt Jungle
Can you believe I never saw this? Directed and co-written by John Huston, solidly in the middle of the film noir period, one of the very first caper/heist films, shown from the criminal’s POV, which was revolutionary and controversial at the time … and I’d never seen it. Well, I finally caught up, and ... Read more »