Movie Reviews
Titles starting with S
Snatch
Here’s a little test for you, to see if you might like this movie. Boris the Blade is said to be unkillable, and he has escaped from some pretty awful things still standing. But he encounters three of the most comically bungling crooks in London, and one, Bullet Tooth Tony, who is not funny at all. They are in a narrow hallway, with the three clowns cowering on their bellies. Tony shoots ... Read more »
Snow Cake
Portraying the disabled on screen is fraught with peril, in my opinion. Many an actor has made a fool of himself or herself trying to do so. It can be painful to watch. I won’t cite examples. You can probably think of some. Autism is particularly tough to deal with. Recently Claire Danes did a good job in Temple Grandin, at least partly because she had advice ... Read more »
Snow Queen
It sounded interesting, with Bridget Fonda playing the title role. And it looks good. But the filming was amateurish, and thirty minutes into it, the damn thing was already dragging. I wasn’t looking forward to another two and a half hours of it, so I bailed out.
The Snow Walker
You’ll immediately note the similarities with Carroll Ballard’s masterpiece Never Cry Wolf. They’re both based on books by Farley Mowat. Charles Martin Smith starred in the first one, and he directed this one. He must have fallen in love with the Arctic. I can see loving what it looks like, it’s gorgeous, but if you’d actually filmed up there I can’t imagine ... Read more »
Snow White and the Huntsman
Early on in this picture Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen Ravenna actually does face the Magic Mirror and asks it:
Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
Who is fairest of them all?
Well, the mirror really should have answered something like this: “You’re kidding, right? Fishing for compliments? Charlize, as you well know, in a beauty contest with you and Kristen Stewart ...
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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Walt’s wife, Lillian, said: “No one’s ever gonna pay a dime to see a dwarf picture.” His brother, Roy, was against it. And like every other time I’m aware of that people told Walt he was crazy, they were wrong. He thought he could make it for a quarter of a million, and it ended up costing six times that. He mortgaged his own house. But it made more money than any picture until Read more »
Snowpiercer
Based on a comic book. What are you gonna do with a movie like this? The director, Bong Joon-ho, is a critical darling (and he made a terrific little movie, Gwoemul, AKA The Host), and the ratings among the critics were astronomical: 84 at Metacritic and 95% at Rotten Tomatoes. But the audiences didn’t like it nearly so well, and for my ... Read more »
So Dear to My Heart
I watched this one when I first got the tape, and probably would have skipped it now except that I wanted to view all the Disney animated features in order. (I put this and other partially animated films on my list; some don’t.) It’s not really worth a second look … in fact, it’s probably not even worth a first look for most people, except the very young. I read somewhere it was one of Mr. ... Read more »
The Social Network
I guess I really started to feel it with rap music. The generation gap, I mean. My parents didn’t understand rock and roll, and I suspect their parents didn’t understand jazz and swing. I don’t get rap. I don’t like it, never will. If you’re younger than me (and I’ve started to feel that almost everybody is) the chances are good that you like rap.
I don’t see myself as a ... Read more »