Movie Reviews
A Mighty Wind
One of my favorite movies of the year. Christopher Guest has done several of my favorite movies: Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, and This is Spinal Tap (writer and actor). He has a knack of taking a group of people with an obsession (dog shows, heavy metal rock, small-town theater groups and, in A Mighty Wind, has-been folk ... Read more »
A Mighty Heart
The problem with a story whose outcome you know is simple: How do you build and sustain suspense in such a situation? There are various ways, some better than others. In an epic like The Longest Day, for instance, you know the invasion will be successful, but you don’t know who will live and who will die. One of my favorite examples of a smaller incident is Read more »
One Week
Buster Keaton two-reeler. This is one of the well-known ones. Buster is a newlywed, and the couple has received a build-it-yourself house in a lot of boxes. But Buster’s rival has switched the numbers on the boxes. When the house is completed, it is all out of whack. This provides endless opportunities for pratfalls, and Buster finds every one of them. When a storm comes, the wind blows ... Read more »
Micmacs
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of my favorite directors. His record is damn near perfect, with Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, A Very Long Engagement, and most of all, Amélie on his rather short list of films. (Let’s forget all about Alien: Resurrection, which was obviously done for the paycheck.) His films ... Read more »
Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure
One more (and, sadly, the last we hadn’t seen) long trip with Michael. This time it’s a theme instead of a place or a route. Palin has liked Hemingway since he first read one of his novels in grade school … or whatever they call it in England. Now, I’ll admit that I don’t much care for the Great White Hunter and all-around macho man, neither his prose nor his person. But there’s no denying ... Read more »
Michael Palin: New Europe
Poor Michael Palin! Imagine, traveling to some of the world’s most remote and fascinating places with an advance crew to book your transportation and lodging and hire expert (and in this case, at least, often beautiful and female) guides and interpreters. Imagine the nuisance of having to stop off for a little chat with people like the Dalai Lama or Lech Wałęsa on your travels. Imagine ... Read more »
Michael Palin: Great Railway Journeys
This BBC series had 8 episodes in the ‘80s, then it shut down, only to reappear in 1994, ’96, and ‘99. The format: various people were picked (I don’t know how) to take a trip on a train. Cameras followed, and the footage would be edited into a one-hour show. Michael Palin (no relation to Sarah) made two of them. I would go anywhere with Michael Palin—we have already gone with him around ... Read more »
One Way Pendulum
Here’s one for my list of extremely odd movies. It’s not a long list. It’s from a stage play by N.F. Simpson, who was an absurdist, like Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. It was influenced by the famous “Goon Show,” and in turn influenced Monty Python. It was made a year before one of my favorite films, Richard Lester’s The Knack … and How to Get It, and there is ... Read more »
One of Our Aircraft is Missing
I’ve always like British movies from WWII better than American ones. Ours are always relentlessly gung-ho, I guess because that’s how we built morale in 1940s America. The Brits always go the other way. They understate it all, with droll wit and “Do duck your head, old chap!” “Oh, I say, thanks, you old thing!” sang-froid. Here we have the story of a crew of six on a bombing mission to ... Read more »
One-Hour Photo
Robin Williams stretches himself here, and the plot doesn’t unfold quite as you would expect it to. But not real memorable.