California Split

In 1970 Robert Altman came barreling out of nowhere with M*A*S*H, on my personal Top 25 Best Films Ever List. Well … not exactly. He had actually served a 20-year apprenticeship in series television (everything from “Peter Gunn” and “Maverick” and “Bonanza” to “The Gale Storm Show” and “The ... Read more »

The Call

Here we have a real white-knuckle thriller involving Halle Berry as a 911 operator in Los Angeles, who is stressed out because one of her calls went badly wrong as the result of a mistake she made. So she gets another, from Abigail Breslin in the trunk of the car of a sex maniac who, no surprise, turns out to be the same guy who killed the previous girl on the line, six months before. I ... Read more »

Call Northside 777

Before there was The Wrong Man, there was this movie. Both are in a semi-documentary style, both concern men wrongly convicted of murder, both were based on true stories. In this one, filmed on location in Chicago, Jimmy Stewart is a reporter who is reluctantly put on the story when the convict’s mother, a charwoman, saves up $5000—a huge sum back then—over ... Read more »

Call the Midwife

Jessica Raine plays Jenny Lee, the new name for Jennifer Worth, upon whose memoirs this series is based. In the mid-‘50s she begins work at an Anglican nunnery (though she is not a nun herself) in London’s poverty-stricken East End as a midwife. She herself was gently-raised, though not of the upper classes, and soon finds herself immersed in a culture she knows little or nothing about. ... Read more »

Callaway Went Thataway

Oh, my, how TV has changed. Are any of you old enough to remember when it was a rounded little screen—maybe a whole fifteen inches!—with a fuzzy image in black and white? In those days pitchmen and women spoke directly to the camera, selling refrigerators, like Betty Furness, or Vitameatavegamins, like Lucy Ricardo. Or any number of other products, such as breakfast cereals. (In the ... Read more »

Calvary

Brendan Gleeson is one of my favorite actors. He is not a marquee name and probably never will be, but he’s a long way from just a character actor. He has achieved star billing in several really good smaller movies, such as The Guard and In Bruges. For a certain kind of role—smart, imperturbable, confident—you just can’t do any ... Read more »

The Cameraman

This was the first film Buster Keaton made under contract to MGM, which means it was the first where he didn’t have complete creative control. Luckily, the iron fist of the biggest studio in Hollywood didn’t hammer him too hard on this one. That was to come later, when MGM’s idiotic idea of what audiences wanted to see clashed mightily with Buster’s comedic genius. I think it’s noteworthy ... Read more »

The Cameraman

It is generally agreed that the Top Three comics of silent film were Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd (I met Harold Lloyd in 1965!), usually in that order. I usually agree … except sometimes I put Buster in the top slot.

This was Keaton’s first film after signing a contract with MGM, which he characterized as the worst mistake he ever made. Right after this one the ... Read more »

Camille

This one went direct to DVD. It got off to an extremely rocky start for me, as this white trash couple got married. He’s so ambivalent that he can only choke out a “Yes” at the altar. She’s so oblivious, so blindly in love, that she can’t see this as a bad sign. He spends the first few hours of their honeymoon (on a motorcycle with a sidecar) bitching at her because she won’t shut up, even ... Read more »

Camp

A pale imitator of Fame, some of it astonishingly amateurish. Some of the worst acting and writing I’ve ever seen.