Movie Reviews
Titles starting with C
Crash
Yeah, the critics who didn’t like it are right in that it is manipulative and relies on staggering coincidences. And it’s true that this sort of thing has been done before, and possibly better, in two great films: Grand Canyon and Magnolia. And Do the Right Thing is an angrier film about the same theme. But ... Read more »
Crazy Heart
All I knew was that it was about a washed-up, alcoholic country singer who once was pretty famous, and that Jeff Bridges won the Oscar. Uh … can anyone say Tender Mercies? I wasn’t really falling all over myself to see it. So I was pleasantly surprised when Robert Duvall showed up as one of Bad Blake’s old friends. I only wish he had been Mac Sledge, the role he ... Read more »
Crazy Heart
All I knew was that it was about a washed-up, alcoholic country singer who once was pretty famous, and that Jeff Bridges won the Oscar. Uh … can anyone say Tender Mercies? I wasn’t really falling all over myself to see it. So I was pleasantly surprised when Robert Duvall showed up as one of Bad Blake’s old friends. I only wish he had been Mac Sledge, the role he ... Read more »
Creature With the Atom Brain
A sort of early Terminator. A scientist creates zombie-like robots from reanimated corpses, who are fully as determined to carry out their missions as Arnold was. They are pretty creepy, inexorable, hard to kill because they’re already dead. I actually enjoyed this potboiler a lot more than I expected to, but it takes a taste for B-movies.
Creed
I liked the original Rocky, and think I saw Rocky II, though I can’t remember it. Other than that, the other four films in the saga are unknown to me. So I know nothing of what happened between the first one and this one. It doesn’t really matter. All I need to know is that the young fighter an aging Rocky trains in this film is the ... Read more »
Crime and Punishment
I ain’t never read none of them high-falutin’ Russian novels like Warren Pease or The Brothers Kutchyakokov, and I ain’t really interested in reading them, either. So my understanding is that this is a little like a Cliff’s Notes version of C&P. Fine with me. I think I got most of the plot points, though looking through the Wiki ... Read more »
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Martin Landau is Judah, a successful ophthalmologist who is having an affair with Anjelica Huston. He thinks he told her he would not leave his wife; she claims he had better leave her or she will expose the whole nasty thing, and also some financial improprieties he was stupid enough to tell her about. It’s a Fatal Attraction scenario as she gets crazier and ... Read more »
Criminal
I love movies about con games, but they have to be honest. I know that sounds funny, the moviemaker is obviously going to be out to trick you, and I want to be tricked. What I mean is, it should all add up when it’s over. You should have seen it coming. I’ve loved con games since The Sting, which introduced me ... Read more »
Criminal
John C. Reilly is a con man who recruits the young and inexperienced Diego Luna for a big scam he is running on a billionaire currency collector, to sell him a very good counterfeit of a one-of-a-kind banknote worth up to around a million dollars. Complications arise. As in all movies like this (and I am an addict of con movies) I keep my hand firmly on my wallet from the first frames … ... Read more »
Crisis
This film was banned in all Spanish-speaking countries south of the border, and no wonder. It depicts life under the sort of military strongman that was typical of just about all those countries during at least some part of their histories, and a revolution to overthrow one of them. Can’t have that floating around, giving people ideas … as if they needed a film to ignite the spark of ... Read more »