The Sin of Harold Diddlebock

The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947) This film had quite a checkered (chequered?) history. It was begun in 1945, the result of a deal between Preston Sturges and Howard Hughes, when he was beginning to get really crazy. Sturges persuaded Harold Lloyd to come out of retirement. And it wasn’t ready to show until 1947. It got mixed reviews, and Hughes pulled it after only a few showings and ... Read more »

Since Otar Left

An old woman, her daughter, and her granddaughter, share a home in Tbilisi, Georgia. The country is a mess, something I hadn’t realized; the power goes off at night, the daughter used to be an engineer and now can’t find work. The old woman thinks things were better back in the days of Stalin. Her son, Otar, a medical student, has moved illegally to Paris to find work. Then Otar dies, and ... Read more »

Singin’ in the Rain

See my review of An American in Paris. I said that the best musical of all time was whichever one of these two I’d seen most recently. So now this one is the all-time champion. AAIP is only a darn good musical for most of its length, and then comes the ballet, which boosts it onto a whole new level. SITR is ... Read more »

A Single Man

Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the stories that later became the musical Cabaret. The novel was one of the first mainstream books that dealt openly with homosexuality, and played a part in the rise of the Gay Liberation movement. It’s a day in the life of a gay college professor who has lost his younger lover and sees no reason to go on. He ... Read more »

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Four 16-year-old girls, close friends practically from birth, discover a pair of magical jeans that somehow fit all of them, the tall and thin, the short and chubby. They are parting for the summer, and agree to mail them to each other so each will have equal access to the magic.

Given that plot outline, I expected a fairly dumb result. All of them will get handsome boyfriends, ... Read more »

Sisters

Wow. You trust that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will give you some great comedy. They have both done so in the past, repeatedly. So you rent this piece of shit. And I’m being kind calling it that. I was stunned at how bad it was. Somehow it managed to get a 6.1 from viewers at the IMDb, but I browsed through the first two pages there and found only two favorable reviews. The rest … ... Read more »

The Sisters Brothers

I really can’t find much to say about this except that it is a quirky western, and I enjoyed it. The plot is never predictable, it is quite complicated, and John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix are very good as hired guns in the gold rush days. This won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you like things a little different, you might like it.

Sita Sings the Blues

Finding a movie that shows you something brand new, something you’ve never seen before, is sort of like winning the lottery for $250,000,000. (Except for the part about getting rich and paying off your debts and never having to work again and buying a yacht and a private island and a Rolls-Royce and a mansion and hiring servants …okay, it’s not like winning the ... Read more »

Sitting Pretty

Robert Young and Maureen O’Hara get top billing here, but the picture belongs to Clifton Webb, whose portrait of live-in “nanny” Mr. Belvedere was funny enough to win him an Oscar nomination and two sequels, which I haven’t seen. Belvedere describes his occupation as “genius,” and you really can’t fault him. Prissy and condescending, he proves to be able to do almost anything, the least of ... Read more »

Six By Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim has never been one to hide himself away and make people wonder what he is like. There are many interviews with him that the filmmakers used here, stretching all the way back to his early career, in venues like The Mike Douglas Show. And boy, the man can talk. He is articulate, thoughtful, erudite, insightful, a perfect interview subject. There is ... Read more »