Princess Mononoke

I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan of Japanese anime. I still prefer the full-motion animation of Disney at its best, or the CGI of Pixar. I find the cheap short-cuts of anime irritating. Still, when the story is this good, and when the art is this good, it is a lot more than just watchable. The very best anime artists know how to use stillness as well as motion, aren’t afraid to do small ... Read more »

Princess Tam-Tam

Last month (July, 2008) the US Post Office released a pane of stamps featuring “Vintage Black Cinema.” (These are truly lovely, and the only glossy postage stamps I’ve ever seen.) In addition to this one, they are Black and Tan (1929), a 19-minute short featuring Duke Ellington and his band, The Sport of the Gods (1921) written by black ... Read more »

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Not all of Neil Simon’s plays are light-hearted romantic romps. This one was his attempt to write something dealing with a more sober subject: mental illness. Jack Lemmon is already getting stressed out by city living, the little things that add up to a constant state of frustration. Long-suffering Anne Bancroft, his wife, tries to help. Then Jack is fired from his job, and sinks deeper ... Read more »

The Prisoner of Zenda

The novel upon which this is based spawned an entire genre known as the “Ruritanian romance.” Anthony Hope invented the fictional country somewhere in Germanic Europe, and after that the term was used for any adventure set around stuffy royal courts. The Marx Brothers spoofed it in Duck Soup, George MacDonald Fraser used the same plot and background with his ... Read more »

Prisoners

Here’s an extremely powerful, haunting, and horrifying story. Hugh Jackman has a daughter he loves. One day she goes missing, and he and his wife, Maria Bello, begin to freak out. She goes limp, unable to deal with things. He turns himself in a vigilante. He suspects a deeply disturbed young man, Paul Dano, playing yet another weirdo, who has been hanging around. He kidnaps him and walls ... Read more »

A Private War

Marie Colvin was an American reporter who had been working for The Sunday Times in London for five or six years as a foreign correspondent covering various wars around the globe when she lost an eye to an RPG in Sri Lanka. That’s where our story begins, and we already know that she was to die from an IED during the siege of Homs in Syria, in 2001.

I could ... Read more »

The Prize

I remember this film vividly from when it was new, because I sort of fell in love with Elke Sommer. I’m happy to report that she’s still alive, and she’s a painter. She’s pretty good, too. She has her own distinct style. Google her name and you can see a lot of images.

She was always a terrible actress, but she worked steadily in B or C or Z movies. I looked at her filmography and ... Read more »

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

My mother was born and raised in Defiance—actually on a farm nearby—so naturally I had to see this. What a lovely little town it is! Full of 1950s Hudsons, Packards, Studebakers, tree-lined streets, small mid-western houses … and of course it was all filmed in Ontario, Canada.

Robert A. Heinlein, in his novel Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, had his ... Read more »

Prizzi’s Honor

I must confess a bit of prejudice regarding this movie. It was produced by John Foreman, my best friend during my Hollywood years. I thought it was a great movie even before I met John. It was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, which would have meant an Oscar on his mantle. But it was the year of Out of Africa—which I thought was a ... Read more »

The Producers

Many critics have been very harsh, and I don’t understand why. Sampling the killer reviews, I find that many people object to the fact that director (of stage and screen versions) Susan Stroman has basically filmed the play. Oh, sure, the absolutely brilliant number with the little old ladies dancing in their walkers has been set outdoors on Park Avenue, but the rest is firmly set on the ... Read more »