Movie Reviews
Titles starting with B
The Bucket List
Starts off better than I’d expected. You know from the previews that these guys are dying, and out to have some fun before that happens, and I expected it to be a lark from the beginning. Not so. It’s pretty grim. But then after the list of things to do was made it began to lose its way. I thought it was overboard to have Jack Nicholson be so damn bloody rich ... Read more »
The Buddy Holly Story
Listen to me, Buddy, and you, too, Ritchie and Big Bopper, don’t get on that plane! I have just returned to 1959 in a time machine, from a really horrible possible future where you did get on it and all of you died in a frozen Iowa cornfield … and a real monster has become President of the United States. That ... Read more »
Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson
Robert Altman had times in his career when he was very hot, and times when no one would take his phone calls. Sometimes it was because of big flops like this one. He followed his triumph of Nashville with a string of no less than six disasters. I’m not saying they were all bad, they were not. But they didn’t sell tickets, and he was well aware that to keep ... Read more »
Bug
I don’t think I ever even heard of this one. I don’t know if it ever “opened wide” at all, but they’re sure giving it big DVD play. Blockbuster has a ton of them, all checked out but the one I rented. The cover certainly suggests that it’s a horror movie … and it is, but I think a lot of people will be misled. It’s not about entomology at all, it’s about real horror: paranoia. Personally, ... Read more »
A Bug’s Life
The second film by Pixar is probably the weakest of the eleven they have so far released … and it’s pretty wonderful. (We’ll have to wait and see about Cars 2 [2011] and Monsters, Inc. 2 [2012]. I’m suspicious of sequels, but look at the Toy Story saga, which just kept getting better and better.) I would say ... Read more »
Bull Durham
Several sources rate this as the best sports movie of all time, or at least in the top five. Part of the criteria for choosing a “best”, naturally, is how you feel about the sport in question. Many Top 10 or 25 or 50 lists have a ton of boxing movies. I don’t care for boxing, or for movies about this brutal “sport.” There’s also a lot of basketball movies, like Read more »
Bullets Over Broadway
It’s hard to recall another Woody Allen film where people actually get killed. In fact, there is seldom any violence at all; people in his films tend to hurt one another with their words, not their fists or firearms. Several people are killed in this one, but it’s not at all bloody.
And it’s definitely a comedy. John Cusack is one of those insufferable playwrights who feel their ... Read more »
Bullitt
I happened to see this at the absolute perfect spot: A drive-in theater down by the San Francisco Airport. It had four screens with a refreshment stand in the middle. It is no longer in operation, but I was amazed to find that its outline can still be seen on Google maps. If you find the airport, look between that and the Coyote Point Recreation Area. It’s right on the Bay, a brown square ... Read more »
Bunny Lake Is Missing
A 4-year-old girl goes missing from her London school. The police (Laurence Olivier) are called in and the investigation begins. Before long we are all wondering: Does this child really exist? No one at the school can remember her. We the audience never saw her. The mother (Carol Lynley) and her brother (Keir Dullea) begin to seem a little off-center.
Can’t tell you much more than ...
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Burden of Dreams
Criterion Collection DVD. Recounts the epic tale of the making of the epic movie Fitzcarraldo. We don’t get to see Werner Herzog pulling a gun on Klaus Kinski (which he is rumored to have done), but just about everything else that could go wrong, does go wrong. It’s mostly because of Herzog’s obsession with filming a thousand miles up the river ... Read more »