Kingdom of Heaven

I think it’s a genetic thing. If you have the DNA for being a movie director, the irresistible urge to film a big cavalry charge goes with the territory. For the guys, anyway. Some real good guys have done a cavalry charge. Laurence Olivier put one of the best ever in the first movie he directed: Henry V. Michael Curtiz and Tony Richardson did it 24 years apart ... Read more »

Kingdom Hospital

Stephen King’s adaptation of a Danish or Swedish TV mini-series by Lars Von Trier. Looks like there were about a dozen episodes of this version; now out on DVD with 3 episodes per disk. It’s a real stinker. I only lasted 20 minutes of the first installment. This guy was running down a country road when he got hit by a van whose driver was trying to keep his dog from getting into a cooler ... Read more »

The King’s Speech

Just as good as everyone said it was, and, other than True Grit, the best of last year’s movies (of the nominees I’ve seen). All three principal actors do a wonderful job. And it contains one priceless scene, which is one more than even the best movies usually contain. The wife of the speech therapist has not been told that her husband ... Read more »

King of the Corner

Produced, directed, written by, and starring Peter Riegert. Obviously a labor of love, and it’s quite a nice little trifle, sort of like the films Woody Allen used to make without quite so much angst. The hero, Leo, is basically having a mid-life crisis (ho-hum) but he doesn’t rant and rail about it. You’ll be reminded of Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman, but ... Read more »

The King of Marvin Gardens

This is the movie that Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson made right after Five Easy Pieces, while they were both hot. Rafelson was never this hot again. It’s a quirky little film, shot almost entirely in Atlantic City in the winter, before the town was infected with casinos. The boardwalk is almost deserted in every shot, unlike it was the one time I visited, in ... Read more »

King Kong

First, it’s very, very good in most respects. The effects are stunning, the story is a bit deeper than the original, and Andy Serkis as Kong is so good that the Academy will almost certainly ignore him for his work again, as they did for his portrayal of Gollum, because they can’t imagine that there’s a real actor behind the CGI ... Read more »

King Arthur

Interesting idea. We know that King Arthur and all that Lady in the Lake, Holy Grail, Merlin the Magician stuff is legend, not history … but what if it’s legend based on history? So that in the year 452 there really was an Arthur, a Guinevere, a Lancelot, and all the other usual suspects?

That’s the premise here, and it looks good. Talk about your Dark Ages. Rome is falling ... Read more »

Kind Hearts and Coronets

There are very few movies whose plot is completely turned around by the very last line. This is one. (Another is The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. The original, not the piece-of-crap remake. Only the last line in Pelham is a sneeze!) And that is after a saved-at-the-last-moment twist that you think has it all wrapped up. Dennis Price ... Read more »

The Killing (Season Two)

Seattle is just as cold, dark, and rain-swept this season as it was the last. As if this wasn’t bad enough, almost all the scenes are shot in rooms with almost no lighting, and most of the actors are shot against a window, backlighted. Very stylish, I know. In spite of this, we were involved in it all and looked forward to Sunday. The plot got insanely complicated, with red herrings all ... Read more »

The Killing

Seattle is the ugliest town in North America, maybe in the whole world. It rains every day, and especially every night, in Biblical proportions. Many of those ships in the harbor are lining up pairs of animals from the Seattle zoo, those who haven’t drowned already. Penguins drown in the Seattle zoo. Fish drown. When it isn’t raining, ... Read more »