Monsters

Reminds me a bit of Cloverfield, and a pretty good Korean film, Gwoemul (Monster), in that they hold off on showing the monsters for a while. You don’t get a good look at them until the end. It’s low-budget, less than a million dollars, but surprisingly effective with its SFX. You can do an SFX movie without spending a hundred big ones. ... Read more »

Monster-in-Law

So, after 40 years of retirement, Greta Garbo has decided to get back into the movie business, and as her return vehicle she decides to star in … Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster. Or Gidget Goes to Hawaii. This isn’t quite that extreme … but what was Jane Fonda thinking? Fifteen years she doesn’t make a movie, and then she ... Read more »

Monster

All 5 Best Actress nominees this year were very, very good, but 4 of them ran into the monster performance of Charlize Theron, who I swear I would never have identified through 109 minutes if I hadn’t known it was her. It is simply the most awesome performance in a decade. Maybe more. It was much, much more than just make-up and a 30-pound weight gain. She seemed to be inhabiting someone ... Read more »

Monsieur Ibrahim

I’ve always liked Omar Sharif. This Egyptian man can pass as any kind of Middle Eastern to American audiences, and this time he is a Turkish Sufi who has run a grocery store in Paris for many years. He befriends a Jewish boy whose father is depressive and cold. It all works very well, if maybe a little predictably. A great performance by Sharif.

Mondovino

I hardly know where to start in enumerating the things I didn’t like about this movie. … Let’s begin with wine.

I know nothing about wine. You know that slop bucket Paul Giamatti poured over his head in Sideways? If you gave me a glass of that I couldn’t distinguish it from Chateau Rothschild ’65. I do know a bit about wine snobbery, though. It is my ... Read more »

Mona Lisa Smile

A female Dead Poets Society or The Emperor’s Club, and I haven’t really cared for Julia Roberts since Pretty Woman, but this was a lot better than I had expected, mainly because of a cast of some of the best young actresses working today.

Moby Dick

I seem to be one of the very few people who read the book and actually liked it. Even Ray Bradbury, who wrote the script with director John Huston, admitted he’d “never been able to read the damn thing.” Most people complain about all the whaling lore that they feel pad out the book; I thought all that was fascinating.

For some reason I had never seen this until last night. I’d seen ... Read more »

Mister Roberts

Most classic movies hold up well on an second or third viewing. A few don’t. I’m going to have to put this one on that short list. It’s a personal opinion, and a result of changes in me more than anything. The central point of my objection is that I no longer admire nor really believe the standard cliché of the day: “Just let me get into combat, sir! Let me at ‘em!”

Sure, I know ... Read more »

The Missing

Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones are wonderful actors, and Ron Howard is a great director, but everybody makes a turkey now and then. Gobble-gobble.