Movie Reviews

The Wild Bunch

(1969)

DIRECTED by Sam Peckinpah
PRODUCED by Phil Feldman and Roy N Sickner
WRITTEN by Walon Green, Roy N Sickner & Sam Peckinpah
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Jerry Fielding
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Lucien Ballard
ART DIRECTION by Edward Carrere

My favorite western of all time. Picture this: Bill Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan, and Ben ... Read more »

The Knack

(UK, 1965)

DIRECTED by Richard Lester
PRODUCED by Oscar Lewenstein
SCREENPLAY by Charles Wood
BASED ON A PLAY by Ann Jellicoe
ORIGINAL MUSIC by John Barry
CINEMATOGRAPHY by David Watkin
PRODUCTION DESIGN by Assheton Gorton

This is certainly the quirkiest selection on my list. Few people have heard of The Knack, (The Knack, and How to Get ... Read more »

The Princess and the Frog

(2009)

Those of you Faithful Readers who have been following the saga of our Saturday night journey through the Walt Disney animated features all the way from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs right through … well, this one, will wonder why this one is being reviewed out of order. The simple answer is that I just bought the DVD and wasn’t willing to wait until some months ... Read more »

Bolt

(2008)

And so we come to the end of our chronological viewing of all Disney feature animated movies (including those that have some animation, like Enchanted and Mary Poppins). (We watched The Princess and the Frog out of order.) Now we’ll have to wait until Thanksgiving—I’m writing this on ... Read more »

Enchanted

(2007)

Every once in a while a movie manages to navigate the tricky shoals of sentimentality without ever running aground on the reefs of schmaltz. Amelie was one. This is another. I have no problem with sentiment, if it is laid on with humor and artistry. This movie pokes delightful fun at almost every animated Disney movie ever made, while at the same time being true ... Read more »

Meet the Robinsons

(2006)

Traditionally in Hollywood, if an action movie has a weakness, it is in the third act, when everything falls apart in a flurry of violence and illogic. Here we have a movie which has a really bad second act, and the reason is simple: Too many Robinsons. The movie was adapted from a book called A Day With Wilbur Robinson. If the book had ... Read more »

Chicken Little

(2005)

Here is the very last Disney animated feature I hadn’t seen yet. It is also the first completely CGI feature, and the first one to have no VHS release. I think it was the first one to come in a 3D version, too, though I’m not sure about that. And here we have what seems to me a prime example of how a concept can be blown up all out of proportion. We begin with the old tale of “The sky is ... Read more »

The Incredibles

(2004)

Everything I expected it to be, and even a bit more. One of the more adult-themed feature-length animations I’ve ever seen, except maybe The Triplets of Belleville. The animation is everything you’ve come to expect, and the story is even better than Finding Nemo, in my opinion. Of course, that’s from an older viewer. It has more to do ... Read more »

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

(1964)

DIRECTED by Stanley Kubrick
PRODUCED by Stanley Kubrick, Victor Lyndon & Leon Minoff
SCREENPLAY by Terry Southern, Stanley Kubrick & Peter George
BASED ON THE NOVEL Red Alert by Peter George
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Laurie Johnson
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Gilbert Taylor
PRODUCTION DESIGN by Ken Adam

Stanley Kubrick is the only great director who, in ... Read more »

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