Movie Reviews
Rize
I guess I’m probably the last to hear about the clown dancers of South Central Los Angeles and Watts and Inglewood, places most white people never go. Also about “stripper dancing,” and “krumping.” My understanding is that this sort of dance is in a lot of music videos these days, but since I never see music videos …
This movie was a revelation to me. Briefly, a guy who later ... Read more »
Rivers and Tides
RENT THIS DVD AT ONCE!!! Andy Goldsworthy is a weird Scotsman who is an “environmental sculptor.” And what the hell does that mean? Well, he’s not like Christo, who I love, whose works are all outdoors because they are so goddam big.
What he does is, he goes someplace, and he makes something. He uses no tools except what he finds there; for him, a rock or ... Read more »
The Phantom of the Opera
It all boils down to whether or not you like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music. Lee and I do, though from his television appearances he strikes me as a conceited British snot and bore of the kind I find most tiresome. Opera-lovers hate him. Most lovers of Stephen Sondheim (and I am one) hate him. The critics have complained that the story is over the top, that the movie is full of ham acting—but ... Read more »
The Ritz
Richard Lester was one of my all-time favorite directors. From A Hard Day’s Night in 1964 through Robin and Marian in 1976 I loved each of his 12 movies. I liked this one, too, and then he completely collapsed. He made 5 really bad movies, including two in the first Superman series, and one okay one, }}Cuba,}} then retired entirely in ... Read more »
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
My oh my, have we ever come a long way from Roddy McDowell in a monkey suit. I think most people, like me, enjoyed Planet of the Apes in 1968. It was a lot better made than most SF of the time. Then came the sequels (Beneath the, Escape from, Conquest of, Battle for) the ones I saw being pretty awful. Tim Burton did a remake which I ... Read more »
The Petrified Forest
Even film buffs like me have a few classics here and there that we’ve never seen. I’d never caught this one. This film is on just about everybody’s list of classics, but if you look closer, you’ll realize that it’s seen as a Humphrey Bogart classic, not a Leslie Howard classic. So I was a little surprised to see him getting fifth billing. What no one had mentioned to me (and probably it’s ... Read more »
Ripley’s Game
We liked The Talented Mister Ripley, with Matt Damon, but this one is even better, starring John Malkovich as an older version of the amoral fellow. For some strange reason this went straight to video. I intend to read the novels soon.
Rio Bravo
This is so much like El Dorado, a subsequent film by Howard Hawks, that it can be hard to tell them apart. John Wayne is the sheriff, Ricky Nelson is the young gun who joins him, and Dean Martin is his old friend, a drunk. The problem is that these parts were played by James Caan and Robert Mitchum in the first one, and let’s face it, Ricky Nelson is no James ... Read more »
Rififi
This is a bona fide masterpiece. It would probably be on my Top 100 if I made one. Blacklisted director Jules Dassin (who appears here as the Italian safecracker) hadn’t worked in 5 years, and took this job for the money. Then he took a novel which François Truffaut describes as the worst noir book he ever read and turned it into one of the best noir films ever made. It is the ... Read more »
Ride the High Country
Sam Peckinpah’s second movie, and Randolph Scott’s last. It is also Mariette Hartley’s first movie and near the end of Joel McCrea’s career. In addition there are Peckinpah regulars L.Q. Jones and Warren Oates, as well as Edgar Buchanan (Judge Roy Bean). Sam Peckinpah revolutionized the western movie in the 1960s, and this one shows a lot of his trademarks, with over-the-hill heroes, moral ... Read more »