Movie Reviews
Passionada
What I imagine reading one of those cookie-cutter romance paperbacks would be like. We didn’t care for the characters, everything we saw was completely predictable, and we shut it down after an hour with no curiosity about how it all came out. One thing surprised me later, looking it up on IMDb. The second female lead, Emmy Rossum, 18 years old, has landed one of the plum parts of the ... Read more »
Ratatouille
Ratatouille (2007) Here is a movie that is exactly what I’ve come to expect from Pixar … and that’s a good thing. I wonder if ever, in the history of motion pictures, a studio has had a string of hits like this:
Worldwide Gross (rounded off)
Toy Story
$362,000,000
A Bug’s Life
$363,000,000
...
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The Passion of the Christ
Since my Aramaic is a bit rusty and I don’t speak Hebrew, the following review will be in Latin. Caveat Emptor! Cave Canem!
Isthay oviemay ouldshay ebay alledcay “The Assionpay of the Oviegoermay.” Evernay avehay I ufferedsay oughthray uchsay a epulsiveray isplayday of omitousvay erversionpay. Elmay Ibsongay has anagedmay to urntay the orystay ... Read more »
A Passage to India
Colonialism and the clash of cultures. Dr. Aziz hangs with a lot of fellow Indians who are opposed to British rule, and he says he doesn’t like them, but in his heart he wants to be British, or at least to mingle, which simply isn’t done, old chap. Adela and her prospective mother-in-law are newly arrived on the subcontinent, and they want to see the “real” India, not the imported parcels ... Read more »
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Here’s one of the stranger little movies you’ll ever see. It is set in rural Finland and most of it is in the Finnish language. It seems a group of Americans has determined that what everyone thought was a mountain is actually the world’s biggest tomb/prison, dwarfing the pyramids. Prison, because what’s under it is not completely dead, just frozen. And what’s under it? Why … Santa Claus. ... Read more »
Ransom
Glenn Ford and Donna Reed in a pretty good kidnap drama. It was based on a “United States Steel Hour” episode called “Fearful Decision,” which was a rarity at the time, making a movie from a TV show. It was re-made in 1996 with Mel Gibson, directed by Ron Howard. Naturally, since this first version is entirely psychological with no more violence in it than Donna Reed picking up a fireplace ... Read more »
Party Monster
We waited a long time to rent this one. I have to admit that, though I try very hard to divorce the artist from his work, every once in a while I dislike someone so much that it affects me. Adam Sandler is one example, Macauley Culkin is another. I just don’t like him. He or other members of his brood used to live in the same apartment building as my agent in New York, near Lincoln Center, ... Read more »
Rango
Here’s one of the better CGI animated movies of recent years. Johnny Depp is a chameleon who was raised alone in a terrarium, and he has a rich fantasy life. When he is accidentally released in the desert, he finds his way to the little town of Dirt, where his posturing and lying convince the townsfolk to appoint him Sheriff. It’s all an homage to any number of old westerns—near the end ... Read more »
The Party
Comedy is hard. Sometimes it works, and sometimes … Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers experimented here, with a large set and no real script, just a series of gags and a lot of improvisation. It was shot sequentially, so they could play off of what had been done the previous day. And I think that may be the problem. This sort of material has been done brilliantly by the likes of Chaplin and ... Read more »