The Healer

Got off to an interesting start, but quickly became very soapy, overwritten and overacted. When it began to look like a Christian thing, a tale of a woman who regains her faith through a miracle, we bailed out. Maybe we were being unfair, but the fact is we just weren’t that interested. [Don’t you think there should be a separate section for faith-based movies? Or at least a warning ... Read more »

Head in the Clouds

I was left wondering why this film got made. It cost $43 million, and made back less than half a million. One weekend gross was listed as $72. Not thousand dollars. Dollars! All I can figure is that Charlize Theron wanted to make another film with her boyfriend, who co-stars. But did she have that kind of clout when this pic was lensed, as they say in Variety? ... Read more »

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Telling too much about this one would spoil the surprise, and it’s a big surprise, and very well done. Jaw-dropping, with Audrey Tautou playing completely against the type she established in Amelie. Very highly recommended.

The Haunted Mansion

Not funny, not scary, not imaginative. Three for three. The ride at Disneyland is actually funnier and scarier, and much shorter. Which ride is next? Big Thunder mountain railroad? The whirling teacups? The Main Street streetcar?

Haunted

This movie is a little bit better than your usual ghost story. What it mostly lacks is scares. As The Haunting and a few others have proven, you don’t have to have a lot of ghouls and gore and ectoplasm to have a scary ghost story, in fact you don’t really have to see the spooks at all to get a good fright. But this one stays a bit too tame. Aiden Quinn is a ... Read more »

Harry Potter and the Deathly Half-Blood Secret Order of the Sorcerer’s Fiery Stone Goblet Azkabanian Phoenix Chamber

Harry Potter…
Here will be our greatest challenge in our project to re-view some of our favorite series movies. You know, those rare ones where the sequels are almost as good as the originals, of which there are only a few. There is a lot of Harry Potter to watch …

This series of 8 movies is really an extraordinary achievement. If you don’t think so, ... Read more »

Harry Brown

Basically this is Death Wish warmed over, and in England. Sub-human young people terrorize a housing development (which I think they call “Council flats” over there) until elderly ex-marine Michael Caine has finally had enough and starts to kick some butt. Parts of it are good, but it eventually degenerates into a mad riot that I didn’t believe for a moment. ... Read more »

Harry and Tonto

Art Carney pulled off an incredible feat by winning the Oscar for Best Actor. He had to have been the darkest of dark horses that year. Just look at his competition: Dustin Hoffman in Lenny, Al Pacino in The Godfather, Part II, Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, and Albert Finney in Murder on the ... Read more »

Harper

Paul Newman plays Ross McDonald’s Lew Archer (re-named Harper because Paul wanted another movie beginning with H, like Hud and The Hustler, and the next year, Hombre) and it’s lots of fun. He would play Harper again ten years later in The Drowning Pool. We enjoyed the Los Angeles ... Read more »

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

H & K smoke some really good dope, get a gigantic case of the munchies, and nothing will do but that they consume mass quantities of sliders at the grease palace we don’t have out here on the Left Coast. It becomes a quest, which takes them through Princeton University, jail, and a ride on a wild cheetah which they turn on to some dope they’ve stolen from the police. That’s right, a ... Read more »