Movie Reviews
Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth
Harlan and I had been corresponding for some time—this was back in the late 1970s—when my travels on the way to a convention took me through Los Angeles. I arrived at LAX only to find that my connecting flight had been cancelled, and I had seven or eight hours to kill in one of the world’s most boring places. I decided to call Harlan, just to talk for a while. “Hop in a ... Read more »
The Hard Way
Generally considered to be Ida Lupino’s best role, and one that Bette Davis passed on, and later regretted. It is also said to have been inspired by Ginger Rogers’ mother, but I wonder. It’s true that Lela Rogers was deeply involved in Ginger’s career, but nothing I’ve read makes her out to be the scheming, back-stabbing stage mother (actually, big sister, they changed that so Ginger and ... Read more »
Hard Candy
There’s a lot I’d like to say about this film, but I can’t get started without a small
SPOILER WARNING!!!
I say small, because I think just about everybody knows about the twist that occurs about 15 minutes into the film. Hell, it’s given away even by the picture on the DVD box. Which leads me to muse … in these days ... Read more »
Happy-Go-Lucky
Every once in a while a movie comes along and it’s met with almost universal acclaim … and I don’t like it. I’m not talking about overblown comic book movies like Sin City or The Dark Knight, because I don’t care why anyone could (inexplicably) like them. The former was beautiful but crap, and the latter was ... Read more »
Happy New Year
… is a remake of La bonne année, a 1973 film by Claude Lelouch that is, by all accounts, a lot better than this one. But since I haven’t seen that one, I came to this one unprejudiced, and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a bit. It begins as a simple heist movie, which isn’t bad at all, but in the middle it turns into something quite different, ... Read more »
Happy Endings
I have to put this movie on my list of things I’ve seen because I try to be complete. But I can’t review it. Professional reviewers aren’t supposed to admit stuff like this, but I’m just a guy who writes what he thinks about movies, and I’m going to admit that when we saw this last night I was feeling exhausted and a bit depressed and I’d had a mild ... Read more »
Happily Ever After
A completely humdrum French adultery comedy. They used to do these things a lot better than this. There seemed no point to anything, just some people I didn’t like very much either cheating on their spouses or thinking about it. A waste of time.
The Happening
M Night Shabadabadoo is the George W Bush of movie directors. Remember in 2001, Bush’s ratings were sky-high, up in the 90th percentile? Then began a steady decline, as everybody learned what smart people (like me and everyone I know) already knew: that he was a disaster at everything he ever attempted. M Night (I wonder what his friends call him?) began in the stratosphere, with Read more »
Hanna
The phrase that comes to mind here is, “Yes … but.” Yes, it has a lot of plot holes … but not nearly as many as your average thriller. Yes, there are things that weren’t adequately thought out … but it’s miles above most thrillers. Yes, you’ll find yourself asking questions about why this, and not that … but that’s really because most of it is thought out well ... Read more »