Movie Reviews
Robin and Marian
Robin and Marian (1976) Not your usual Robin Hood story. The writer, James Goldman, assumes you know all that Errol Flynn and his merry men in Sherwood Forest stuff. Here we meet Robin and Little John after they’ve been Crusading for 20 years with Richard the Lionheart, who has become just another Christian butcher. (Not that he was ever much of a king, or a human being.) When the king ... Read more »
Rob Roy
There ain’t no justice. Not only was Braveheart not the Best Picture of 1995 (it was a weak year, but Apollo 13, Babe, and Il Postino: The Postman were all better than that overblown Mel Gibson farrago), it wasn’t even the Best Picture About a Scottish Hero of 1995. This movie was, in fact, better than those ... Read more »
Pieces of April
We enjoyed this one a lot. Concerns a black-sheep daughter trying to prepare a Thanksgiving meal for her family, including her mother who refuses to cut her any slack, and is dying of cancer. Sounds awful, but it works very well, particularly Patricia Clarkson, who was nominated for a supporting Oscar.
Pickpocket
Alternate title: Night of the Living Dead Goes to Paris! Every once in a while all the critics steer you wrong. This movie got 100% at Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert couldn’t say enough good things about it. Robert Bresson, the writer/director, is a darling of all cinephiles. And guess what? They’re all full of ... Read more »
The Pianist
One of the harshest tales of survival I’ve ever seen. Fascinating and horrible to watch a man degenerate from a cultured pianist to a ragged animal desperately trying to open a can of peaches. Based on fact, hard as it is to believe. This guy had more luck than any ten men.
Phone Booth
At 81 minutes this might have been a one-hour TV drama, and might have worked better that way, though the commercials would have cut the tension a lot. It moves at breakneck speed and I enjoyed it most of the way. Got to be a little too much there at the end, though.
The Philadelphia Story
One of the best romantic comedies of all time, and to my surprise, I had never seen it. I guess I was under the impression that I had because I had seen the famous wordless opening scene dozens of times in one documentary or another. (Katherine Hepburn breaks Cary Grant’s golf club and he starts to hit her, then changes his mind and puts his hand on her face and shoves her backward, Read more »
Road to Zanzibar
As usual our boys are con men, actually carnival performers whose tricks always go wrong, but this time the girls—Dorothy Lamour, of course, and her friend Una Merkel—are cons, too, running a racket where Dorothy poses as a slave and Una convinces a chump to buy her. They split the money with the slave trader. Since this is “darkest Africa,” you expect a little 1940s racism, but it’s not ... Read more »
Road to Utopia
This one is not quite as good as Road to Morocco. As always, there are some good jokes, good comic dialogue, and plenty of inside jokes and such. From time to time Robert Benchley shows up in the corner of the frame to comment on the action, but it’s not as funny as it should be. The funniest bit is when Bob Hope is sitting on a snowdrift with Dorothy Lamour. She ... Read more »