Movie Reviews
Out of the Past
There have been many attempts to define the genre known as film noir, but none that are really satisfactory. Damon Knight once said that science fiction was whatever he was pointing at when he said science fiction. A Supreme Count justice once defined pornography by saying he knew it when he saw it. Either of those suit me fine when it come to noir. I know what it looks like, and boy, is ... Read more »
The Out-of-Towners
This is a minor work by Neil Simon, written directly for the screen, but it’s still funny. I don’t think any actor who ever lived could have played the character of George Kellerman and taken me through the whole movie without driving me crazy. George is a whiner, though he never actually whines. He feels he is entitled to a better deal from everybody else, including God. As soon as things ... Read more »
Miracle Mile
This is one of those movies I treasure. Made on a small budget, didn’t get much of a release, I’d never heard of it when I happened into the theater one day … and I was blown away. It starts out to be one thing, and then it jerks you up as sharply as a hangman’s noose. You are lulled, artfully, into thinking you are looking at a simple love story, and then within sixty seconds realize ... Read more »
Miracle
This film is rescued from being just a piece of rah-rah chauvinism by placing it firmly in its historical context, and by Kurt Russell’s excellent performance as Herb Brooks, architect of one of the biggest sports upsets of all time, the gold medal won by the American hockey team at Lake Placid in 1980 against a Soviet team that was basically the best the Red Army could provide. If a ... Read more »
Our Town
Talk about full circle. One of Paul Newman’s early roles, before he’d done any movies, was as George Gibbs in a 1955 television production of Thornton Wilder’s masterpiece, Our Town. (It must have been an ideal property for those early, poverty-stricken TV days, as it requires no sets at all.) And but for Empire Falls and his voice work ... Read more »
Min and Bill
This was one of the big movies of 1930, and the one that made Wallace Beery the biggest star at MGM. No kidding. Until Clark Gable came along, Beery had a clause in his contract that said he would always be paid one dollar more than anyone else on the lot! It was so successful that a sequel was made, Tugboat Annie, which many people believe was even better than ... Read more »
Our Hospitality
One of Buster Keaton’s best. It involves a family feud but the plot isn’t nearly as important as the highlight of the movie, a working recreation of Stephenson’s Rocket, which has a pretty good claim to being the first railroad locomotive engine. The train and cars are amusing enough, but the track … oh, my. Instead of moving a log, the builders just made the track hump over it. At one ... Read more »
Millions
A couple times a year a movie comes out of left field and delights me so much that I’m almost at a loss to explain the magic it makes. This is from Danny Boyle, one of the last people you might have expected it from. His previous films included the extremely hairy drug comedy/drama Trainspotting, the film that made Ewan McGregor a star, and the post-Apocalyptic ... Read more »
Othello
This was included on the DVD of O, so I thought I’d give it a look. (The IMDb lists no fewer than 35 versions of Othello for movies and TV!) It stars Emil Jannings as the Moor. Jannings was very good in The Last Laugh, and he starred in The Blue Angel and won the very first Best Actor award for Read more »
Million Dollar Baby
The best movie of the year, for my money. (Lee disagrees.) Okay, we haven’t seen Sideways yet, but hope to in the next few days, and we’re probably going to wait for the DVD of Finding Neverland. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know.
There’s really not much I can say about the film, cinematically. Everything worked. But there ... Read more »