Movie Reviews
Fame
The reviews for this were just awful, which can help me like a picture if it turns out to be not quite as awful as everyone is saying. That’s the case here. It starts off with a lot going against it, as it will be compared with the original, and it’s not in the same league with that, not by a long shot. But it’s not a terrible movie. There are some moments of great energy and foot-tapping ... Read more »
Fame
This film moved me profoundly when I first saw it, when it was new. It got me from the first frames, seeing all these kids auditioning, and it kept getting better. I don’t know when it dawned on me that this was not a made-up place, this was a real school. The New York High School of Performing Arts really existed. (And still does, merged with another arts school ... Read more »
Ed Wood
Probably my favorite Tim Burton movie. It’s clearly a labor of love, about the weirdest guy who ever directed in Hollywood, and until Mark Borchardt came along (see American Movie), the worst filmmaker ever to actually get a film distributed.
Echo Park
If you’ve read my epic account of our walk on Sunset Boulevard, you’ll know that Echo Park is one of our favorite neighborhoods. It’s an old place, for LA. It was the original center of the film industry; Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studio was there when the neighborhood was called Edendale. In the ’30s it was known as Red Hill because it was full of political ... Read more »
The Fallen Idol
Here’s a crackerjack little thriller of the understated kind the Brits do so well. Ralph Richardson is Baines, the butler at the London embassy of an un-named French colonial country. He has a terrible wife who he wants to leave, because he is in love with one of the secretaries there. One night there is an argument at the top of the stairs, and she falls to her death.
Also at the ... Read more »
Eat Drink Man Woman
This is a literally delicious movie. Don’t watch it, as I did, just after you’ve eaten a can of beefaroni. Don’t watch it when you’re hungry, either. In fact, when is a good time to watch it? Maybe after a Thanksgiving feast. It’s about an aging Chinese master chef and his three grown daughters who still live at home, and it is full of wonderful food. I wanted to taste it all. The story ... Read more »
Easy Virtue
It’s Noel Coward, so you know there will be witty lines, and you can be pretty sure it will deal with the British upper classes. (Though he did a really ripping job dealing with ordinary Brits in his excellent wartime movie, In Which We Serve. Writer, co-director—with David Lean—and star!)
This one is not a lot of fun, for me, anyway. I have a ... Read more »
The Fall of the House of Usher
I almost certainly saw this in the ‘60s at a dawn to dusk show at the Don Drive-in in Port Arthur, Texas—where me and a couple other guys would sit through 4 or 5 movies with themes like “Beach Party” or “Edgar Allan Poe”—but I didn’t recall a thing about it. No wonder; it’s pretty forgettable. We watched it Halloween night on a channel that was running a Vincent Price Festival, called ... Read more »
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood
A nice little chronicle of that magic moment, from the late ’60s to the late ’70s, between the collapse of the old studio system and the rise of the new order, when everybody was able to try just about anything. The ’60s were littered with mega-flops, studios were on the brink of bankruptcy, back lots were sold off and re-developed, sound stages gathered dust. Then the ... Read more »
Fair Game
Based on the true story of Valerie Plame vs. the scum of the GW Bush administration, including “Scooter” Libby (convicted, sentenced, and then commuted by scum Bush) and Dick Cheney, who deliberately outed her for blatantly political reasons concerning the lies they all told in the lead-up to the never-ending Iraq War. I didn’t follow the story all that closely at the time and so can’t ... Read more »