Movie Reviews
The Night Listener
A boy is dying and a radio story-teller gets involved with him and his adoptive mother. But is he real? Reminds me a bit of Broken Flowers, and of Blow-Up. But while there’s good build-up, there’s very little payoff. It’s very short, like this review.
A Night in Casablanca
This movie was originally intended to be a spoof of Casablanca, which was already a classic. Groucho’s character was named Humphrey Bogus. But Warner Brothers threatened to go to court over the use of the word Casablanca, which they seemed to think they owned the rights to. So Groucho mounted a letter-writing campaign in The Saturday Evening ... Read more »
A Night at the Opera
Some say this is the best film the Marx Brothers made. I wouldn’t argue with them, though my own personal favorite is Duck Soup. In fact, I prefer all the earlier, Paramount movies. Opera is wonderful, no question, but suffers from the same problem all the Marx MGM movies did, which was Irving Thalberg’s insistence that the movies have ... Read more »
Night at the Museum
When the museum closes, all the exhibits come to life and the new night watchman must deal with the chaos. A lightweight, inoffensive, and totally predictable summer movie that I’m sure I’ll forget all about within a year. But I have to wonder, do you think Ben Stiller and Hugh Grant were twins, separated at birth? A little of that stammering, hesitant, awkward delivery goes a long way. ... Read more »
Nickelodeon
This was one of the last movies on a list that, over the years, I have thought of as the “Why isn’t this on DVD?” list. Happily, the list has been constantly whittled down. The Knack finally came out, and so did Royal Flash, just recently. In fact, the only ones left are another Peter Bogdanovich opus, At Long Last ... Read more »
Megamind
It’s really a toss-up as to which interests me less, Super Heroes (SH) or Super Villains (SV). Superman and Lex Luthor. Batman and the Joker, all bore me senseless. It’s all juvenile twaddle, suitable for viewing only on a brain-dead day. (And yes, I very much do include The Dark Knight.) That’s why I value movies like The Incredibles, ... Read more »
New York, New York
I have a sort of love-hate relationship to this film. It is absolutely gorgeous, shot entirely on the very sound stages at MGM that Liza Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland, worked on in her musical prime. It has more music per minute than just about anything but grand opera, and it is all music that I love, featuring the songs of Tommy Dorsey at first, and working through to the early days of ... Read more »
Meet the Parents/ Fockers
We had seen the first one but I didn’t remember it very well, except there was some business with a cat. So when the DVD of the second one came out we rented the first and saw it again. Funny. That genre of comedy that relies on a string of humiliating moments, which can be awful but Ben Stiller is probably the best there is at that baffled expression as if he’s been hit over the head with ... Read more »
Mean Girls
Every once in a while in the continual eruption of primordial stink that are “teen-age” movies, somebody gets it right. Clueless was one. This is another. Lindsey Lohan is 16, home-schooled in Africa all her life, and now has to cope with … High School! Africa was a piece of cake by comparison. She hasn’t a clue about the anthropology of American teenagers. ... Read more »
Mean Creek
Hollywood makes about 100 teenage fantasy films every year, and I like them if they’re done well. You know the sort. The dweeb gets his revenge. The quiet girl torpedoes the awful clique of cheerleaders. Things come out well at the end. Fun, a pleasant night’s entertainment. They seldom make a film like this one, where real teenagers face real situations, where even the “bad” guy is real, ... Read more »