Movie Reviews
Ruthless People
This has to go on my list of best comedies of all time. I had forgotten just how good it is. It was written and directed by the team of Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers, David and Jerry, who were responsible for another of the funniest movies of all time, Airplane!, and some that were in the same broad lampooning style but not as funny, like Read more »
Russian Ark
One of the most amazing films I have ever seen. It is about 90 minutes long, and consists of one continuous shot, winding all over the corridors and vast rooms of the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg. This is done with high-definition video and a steadicam weighing about 80 pounds; just carrying the damn thing is an heroic achievement. Then consider that about ... Read more »
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Some plays can make dandy movies. Take Sleuth, for instance, one of the best ever. Or you can just film the play, which I usually prefer. See Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman. But “opening it up” can be a big mistake, as in The Crucible, even with a screenplay by Arthur Miller. This film has ... Read more »
Prometheus
SPOILER WARNING. Ridley Scott made two science fiction films that changed the look of movie SF forever: Alien in 1979, and Blade Runner in 1982. I suspect the problem here is that his new film, which is set in the same universe, is going to be compared to Alien, which is a horror ... Read more »
Project Grizzly
There are times when something happens – and it can take only a moment – that changes your life forever. It’s never happened to me, but I’ve seen it with others. Seven years before this movie was made, Troy Hurtubise, a Canadian outdoorsman, had an encounter with a grizzly bear. It’s impossible to know exactly what happened as Troy is such a chatterbox, poseur, and possibly flat-out liar, ... Read more »
Prohibition
Ken Burns’ newest documentary, as he skips happily around in the parts of American history that have enough photographs to make it interesting. In three parts:
One: A Nation of Drunkards. It sounded like such a good idea. All the liberals, yesterday’s progressives, were in favor of it, and a great many conservatives. But that is the greatest weakness of liberalism ... 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »