Movie Reviews
Girl With a Pearl Earring
Every frame looks like a wonderful painting, I’ve seldom seen such beautiful use of light … but the story lacks something. It’s tough to make an entire movie about the creation of a single painting, in this case a famous one by Vermeer. Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George was much better.
The Girl of Your Dreams
Sometime in the ‘30s, a film company from Spain goes to Germany to make a film. Joseph Goebbels becomes infatuated with the star (Penelope Cruz, she falls in love with a Jewish prisoner being used as an extra. It’s played mostly as a comedy, but often doesn’t seem to know what it’s going to be. It looks good, but that’s about all. I was reminded of To Be or Not to ... Read more »
The Gingerbread Man
A bit of an odd history here. Robert Altman had never done a straight thriller before and wanted to try it. The screenplay is credited to “Al Hayes,” which is John Grisham. Seems it was based on a novel he abandoned, and then sold as a screenplay. But he didn’t like Altman’s insertion of profanity, so the pseudonym. It got fairly good reviews from the critics, not so much from the ... Read more »
Himalaya
The six comic geniuses of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (1969-1974) transformed television and then moved on to other careers, though they got back together to make three films: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), and Monty Python’s The Meaning ... Read more »
The Giant Behemoth
In England where it was made, it was titled Behemoth, the Sea Monster, which makes a bit more sense than the rather redundant American title. But I guess it’s better than The Super Colossal Gigantic Titanic Behemoth. One will soon notice the resemblance to The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and in fact it seems ... Read more »
The Ghost Writer
The reviews were very good, and this was even more disappointing because of that. Ewan McGregor goes to the house where ex-PM Tony Blair (oh, okay, “Adam Lang,” but it’s so obviously Blair) is writing his memoirs. His job is to make the turgid stuff more readable. The perfectly awful house where the ex-PM and wife and staff live and work must have been designed by the same sadistic ... Read more »
High School Musical
I first heard of this when the buzz started building for the sequel, and I learned that it had been a monster hit on TV, sold a zillion DVDs, and spawned a best-selling album, a theatrical tour and an ice show, for chrissake! It has millions of devoted teenage fans. As a lover of musicals, I had to see what it was all about.
The bad news is … it’s not much. The music is ... Read more »
The High Sign
Buster Keaton two-reeler. It’s a great little film that is memorable chiefly for the amazing chase near the end, through a two-story, four-room set, where you can see all four rooms at once. There has never been a better movie acrobat than Buster. You wonder how he survived it all.
Hide and Seek
A movie that just flat leaves a bad taste in your mouth. About halfway through I knew they were going for an M. Night Shyamalan fake-out, and the suspect was obvious. Ho-hum, what a surprise twist! Dakota Fanning was incredibly good, and it’s too bad she was wasted in this. It is very hard to make a scary movie, and almost impossible to make one about a little girl being stalked by a ... Read more »
Hidalgo
… is a horse. He is way more intelligent than any real horse, also much tougher and stronger. Yet, if you don’t worry too much about that, it’s not a bad movie. But I am, frankly, surprised it got made. It is a supremely old-fashioned adventure movie: a cowboy and his mustang racing across the Arabian desert (the same Empty Quarter that almost killed Peter O’Toole; we even have Omar ... Read more »