Under the Dome

I wasn’t greatly impressed by the book by Stephen King. I’m a big fan, but I didn’t think it was his best. The idea is very simple: One day without any warning, an invisible dome appears over a small town, shutting it off from the outside world. Anything that straddled the line where the dome appeared is cut into two pieces. (To show how movies almost always make things bigger than the ... Read more »

Under the Silver Lake

This gets off to a promising start, and we always enjoy seeing our old neighborhood around Echo Park and Silverlake in Los Angeles, but it soon gets too clever for its own good, trying to be some sort of air of arty superiority. By the middle of the film I was debating whether or not to finish it. I did, but I’d advise you not to.

Under the Skin

Every once in a while there is a movie that is a critical darling and I just can’t stand it. This is one. Scarlett Johannson is some sort of alien. She cruises the night streets of London, picking up men and taking them to an apartment that is a lot larger inside than it is outside. There they are assimilated (I guess) into a black sea … oh, it’s all too ridiculous, and totally ... Read more »

Under the Tuscan Sun

Part one of a Diane Lane double feature, alphabetically. This is the better of the two. Not great, but watchable.

Under the Yum Yum Tree

You expect a bit of a cultural gap when you watch movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s, but seeing one from my own youth and realizing how long-gone—and unlamented—those days were is a bit of a shock. Think of It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable erecting “The Walls of Jericho” (a blanket on a rope stretched across the room) when he’s spending the night with ... Read more »

Underworld

Underwhelming.

Unfaithful

Diane Lane again, being unfaithful to Richard Gere. Just didn’t quite work for me.

Unfaithfully Yours

I just discovered something of trivial interest. In 1948 George Orwell wrote his masterpiece 1984, picking the year by reversing the last two digits. In the same year Preston Sturges wrote, produced, and directed this … and in 1984 it was remade with Dudley Moore in the Rex Harrison part!

Go see this one. Avoid the re-make like the plague.

Preston Sturges is one of my ... Read more »

An Unfinished Life

Sometimes I wonder about some of these big stars of my generation. Jane Fonda doesn’t make a movie for 15 years, and then what does she pick? The fairly awful comedy Monster-in-Law. Barbra Streisand isn’t around for years, then pops up in the cash-in sequel Meet the Fockers. What’s the deal here?

Robert Redford ... Read more »

Unforgettable

I have a feeling that in a month or two, maybe three, I won’t remember a thing about this movie. Ray Liotta is a medical examiner in Seattle who was accused of murdering his wife, and got off because of tainted evidence that was thrown out. Most people still believe he did it, and he’s desperate to find the real killer. Linda Fiorentino is a scientist who has made some kind of serum from ... Read more »