Movie Reviews
Titles starting with K
The Kid Brother
Harold Lloyd’s next-to-last silent movie. I’d have to say it’s a routine entry in his canon, but as always there are some bits worth seeing. He’s the youngest and weakest of three brothers and their he-man father. They all treat him with contempt but, of course, he’s also the smartest, and brains win out in the end. He ends up saving the day and getting the girl, as he always does. The ... Read more »
The Kid Stays in the Picture
One of the most fascinating Hollywood biographies ever made. Robert Evans was a wonder boy brought very, very low, and he narrates his rise and fall. Wonderful movie.
The Kid Who Would Be King
Kid finds a sword embedded in a chunk of concrete at a site where a building is being torn down. Pulls it out. Turns out this is Excalibur, and he’s King Arthur’s heir, or something like that. It’s an interesting idea, and it has an unusual twist in that the two school students who have always tormented the kid and his nerd friend end up redeeming themselves by joining in the ensuing ... Read more »
The Kid with a Bike
Cyril is twelve, and his father has rejected him. But Cyril is deeply in denial about it, and is as tenacious as a snapping turtle. It takes a lot of convincing to make him accept that the old man is just not interested in him. Meanwhile, he does exactly what he want to, when he wants to, and fuck everybody else. This is just not the sort of movie for me, since I don’t much like kids, boys ... Read more »
The Kids Are All Right
Lots of Oscar nominations here, and all of them well-deserved. Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo got Oscar nominations and Julianne Moore deserved one. Mia Wasikowska was very good, and Lisa Chodolenko, the director, got a screenwriting nomination, and it was up for Best Picture. I have no quarrel with any of that. I enjoyed it greatly, but I have to say that, when it was over, I realized ... Read more »
Kill Bill Again
Actually, Kill Bill Vol. 2, but who’s counting? As I said above, I went to see KB1 reluctantly. It was so astonishing that I was really looking forward to KB2. And what I got was a deflating balloon. A very severe disappointment after the pyrotechnics of the first one. There are good ... Read more »
Kill Bill, Vol. 1
I have never been so conflicted about a movie. We passed on it on the big screen, and kept putting off renting it, looking at it like a visit to the dentist; something you gotta do but you don’t look forward to. You got to see it because Quentin Tarantino is an amazing filmmaker … but such an annoying one. Pulp Fiction, outlined and organized in the regular ... Read more »
Kill the Messenger
Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News when he discovered the history of some of the dirty dealings by those motherfuckers Ronald Reagan and Oliver North concerning arming the Contra “rebels” in Latin America, and what he claimed as active participation by American agents in the importation and distribution of crack cocaine into ... Read more »
Kill Your Darlings
I just have to start out with my Alan Ginsberg story. Me and my friend Chris Kingsley set out to thumb our way west around New Year’s Day in 1967. Just outside of Fort Worth we got a ride with a discharged sailor who was coming from Atlanta, driving his really, really hot Chevy Nova. He needed drivers, as he was falling asleep. At speeds approaching or even exceeding one hundred miles per ... Read more »
The Killer Elite
Sam Peckinpah directed this movie about a private company that offers assassinations to order for clients like the CIA. And I liked many things about it. The movie refused, for a while, at least, to stick to the tried and true story arc of films like this. James Caan and Robert Duvall are good buddies working for this company. And then within the first ten minutes Jimmy is shot in his ... Read more »