Movie Reviews
A Fish Called Wanda
I first saw this at a screening in Toronto with Kris Kristofferson, Cheryl Ladd, Daniel Travanti, John Foreman, Michael Anderson, and David Cronenberg. I remember we all howled with laughter. But for some reason, upon my second viewing 23 years later, it didn’t seem as funny. Possibly it was because I knew what jokes were coming, or maybe I was just in a bad mood. I still think it’s ... Read more »
The Entertainer
Tony Richardson was one of the hot young British directors in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. He made one of my all-time favorite movies, Tom Jones, among many others. This is from a play by John Osborne and stars the great Lord Olivier as Archie Rice, who is usually described as an aging vaudevillian at the tail end of the age of vaudeville, but to my mind the ... Read more »
The First Traveling Saleslady
A turn-of-the-century comedy starring Ginger Rogers, who was pretty much at the end of her movie career. She was 45, and really too old for this sort of role. She still had 40 years to live. She did a little television and appeared on stage, but her glory days were over. With the exception of the wonderful Monkey Business with Cary Grant, all her films of the ... Read more »
Enter Laughing
Based on a book and stage play by Carl Reiner, about his early days and entry into show business. He’s utterly hopeless at first, and Jose Ferrer misses no opportunity to tell him so, with scathing wit. Reiner is played by Reni Santoni, who does a pretty good job of showing that stage fright can be an almost fatal condition. They are supported nicely by the great Elaine May and the always ... Read more »
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
What a coincidence. This week “Kenny Boy” Lay and Jeffrey Skilling went on trial in Houston, and Lee and I watched this video, which at least gives me some idea of what the hell they were doing. That they were and are scum, that they cheated, lied, bribed, stole, and fucked old ladies and poor children is a given in my mind; what I wasn’t too sure of was Read more »
First Men in the Moon
… and a woman. She, of course, is fairly useless, taken along by accident, but still, she’s there. This is one of my favorite fun SF movies. It’s broadly based on a novel by H.G. Wells, who thought that when you got there it would be possible to breathe the atmosphere. The filmmakers had the people wear diving suits with no gloves, which would have been as useless as street clothes, of ... Read more »
The First Amendment Project
Three segments of a program produced for the Sundance Channel and Court TV, each a little over 20 minutes long.
Fox vs. Franken is the best. You may recall that Fox News brought a lawsuit against Franken and his book Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. The case was thrown out of court, but not before Al got enough material ... Read more »
Enoch Arden
Enoch Arden (1911) This was included in the DVD extras for Move Over, Darling. I’m a little confused as to just what I saw. The movie was made in two parts because the studios back then didn’t think anyone would pay extra to see longer movies. This was listed as Part II, but it seemed like the complete story. A complete version exists at the Library of Congress. ... Read more »
Firewall
It took Hollywood a while, but they finally got it. I’m talking about putting technology, and in particular, computers, on the screen. Remember War Games? Nice little movie, but the computer stuff sucked. Or even farther back, Colossus: The Forbin Project. Computers were never like that, and never will be like that.
Later ... Read more »
The Enforcer
Today this would be an episode of “Law & Order” or “CSI.” Not a particularly good one, either. It’s hard to swallow, at first, that these cops and DAs would be utterly baffled by words like “contract” and “hit.” I suppose all slang terms had to be new and mysterious sometime. And you have to keep reminding yourself how ... Read more »