The Saphead

This was Buster Keaton’s first feature-length movie, and it’s important mainly because it was a hit, and cleared the way for his graduation from two-reelers into marquee billing. Other than that … huge Keaton fan that I am, I have to admit that this one is not very good. It was adapted from a novel and a play, and is hardly a comedy at all, except for some comic bits of business that look ... Read more »

The Sapphires

Though it’s hard to believe, right up into the early 1970s Australia did not count aboriginal people as human beings in their census. They were classified as “flora and fauna.” Animals. My, my. America has a lot to answer for in our treatment of native populations—still does—but I think we take a back seat to the Aussies.

This is an unabashed feel-good movie about a rather ... Read more »

Saps at Sea

This was the last movie Laurel and Hardy made for Hal Roach, before their disastrous move to MGM and the domination of that massive studio, where they never had much input into their movies again. It’s not one of their best. The music seemed intrusive to me, hammering home the comic points like it was the Three Stooges. Music in an L&H two-reeler was always subdued, just something ... Read more »

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic

Sarah Silverman (hereinafter, SS, for brevity) recently got in trouble for using the word “chink” on network TV. The network apologized. SS didn’t. Here’s what happened: She said a friend told her how to get out of jury duty. Just write something really inappropriate on the form you fill out. So she wrote “I hate chinks.” But ... Read more »

Sausage Party

One of the more unusual animated films you will ever see. I never saw Fritz the Cat, Ralph Bakshi’s 1972 animated film based on a character created by Robert Crumb, which got an X rating from the MPAA, so I don’t know just how raunchy it was. But I’m betting it wasn’t as explicit as this.

The premise is simple: All the products for sale at your local ... Read more »

Savage Sam

I put this in the DVD player primarily to see if Kevin Corcoran, who played younger brother Arliss in the classic Old Yeller, could possibly be as annoying as he was in that film. He could. The idea that this little self-centered, shithead monster, who chucks rocks at everything he doesn’t like and never obeys ... Read more »

The Savages

An actor’s field day, and a pretty good movie. (I hate the title, though. I expected it to be about savagery, but it’s just the name of the family. If there was some deeper, symbolic meaning, I missed it.) Two adult children have to take care of their father, who is descending into dementia. He was never a good father, they don’t like him, and he has warped their ability to have ... Read more »

Savages

Don Winslow is one of my very favorite writers. I know he’s not for everyone, because his stories often have extreme violence in them. But his characters, his settings, his plots … they’re as good as it gets. He doesn’t have a real series like the one-character writers, but he has revisited some of his characters now and then. He recently wrote a prequel to the book this one was based on, ... Read more »

Saved!

This story is basically the same as we saw recently in Mean Girls, but at a “Christian” school. What it shows is that being blissed out on Jesus is no barrier at all to being the same kind of bitch queen bee we all remember from “real world” high schools. It is very funny, though it goes a little over the top at the end. The message: true Christian ... Read more »

Saving Grace

Brenda Blethyn is Grace, whose husband has just jumped out of an aeroplane without a parachute. She soon finds out why. He has squandered everything they have on business deals that didn’t work out. She is now in debt for £300,000. She’s going to lose her lovely, lovely house.

But she is a fantastic gardener, raises orchids, has terrific grounds that are cared for by Craig Ferguson ... Read more »