Movie Reviews
Titles starting with S
Stone Reader
A very rare thing: A movie about reading, made for lovers of books. Quite a challenge, and the director, Mark Moskowitz, pulls it off. The center of the movie is his search for the author of a book, The Stones of Summer, published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1972 to good reviews, which promptly sank without a trace. The author, Dow Mossman, never wrote another book. ... Read more »
The Story of Film: An Odyssey
This is indeed the story of film … but it may not be what you expect. It is fifteen episodes, one hour each, and was put together by Mark Cousins, an Irishman. (The only thing I kind of wish he hadn’t done was narrate it himself. He has a boring, monotonous voice with that Irish up-tilt on the last word of a sentence. Oddly, he sounds a lot like Werner Herzog.) He indeed covers it all, ... Read more »
The Story of the Weeping Camel
A completely charming and hard to classify movie. Some call it a “narrative documentary,” of the type Robert Flaherty pioneered in Nanook of the North and Man of Aran. That is, the director films real people in their real milieu, scripts what he can, but basically is showing their way of life. There is barely any plot. An extended ... Read more »
Strange Weather
I don’t know if Holly Hunter chooses to act in small films like this because she simply loves the more intimate feel of them or because she can’t land roles in the big movies that certainly pay a lot more. I prefer to think it’s the former. She has shined in a whole lot of “festival” films that she has to have known would never get a big release and a big audience. I really respect her for ... Read more »
The Stranger
There were plenty of directors in Hollywood in the ‘40s and ‘50s that—mostly without knowing it or thinking about it—developed the distinctive look we’ve come to know as film noir. I don’t think any were better at it than Orson Welles. In fact, he pioneered many of the signature camera angles and lighting. This is one of the best noirs I know, with Edward G. Robinson a dogged pursuer of a ... Read more »
Stranger on the Third Floor
Peter Lorre had two days left on his contract at RKO, so they put him to work in a small but crucial part in this movie, and gave him top billing, which must have pissed off the stars, John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet. But who ever heard of John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet? (Well, people probably knew their names back then, but neither of them lasted, like Lorre’s has.) He plays a ... Read more »
Stranger Than Fiction
It’s rare that a film takes an interesting though totally impossible concept and runs with it all the way to the end, exploring all the possible consequences. Films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, and Adaptation come to mind (all three by Charlie Kaufman). Also, though not quite on the same level, ... Read more »
Stranger Than Paradise
Jim Jarmusch is a weird filmmaker, and I mean that in the best possible way. Right now he’s got a film in theaters, Broken Flowers, which we haven’t seen yet but it’s getting very good reviews. Lee and I loved his series of little vignettes, Coffee and Cigarettes. This is very much in the same vein, but much earlier, his third film. ... Read more »
Stranger Things
Yet another good SF/Fantasy/Horror TV show, and yet another that can be binge-watched the first day of release on Netflix. We would have gone straight to the end, but the Olympics intervened, and Lee and I are Olympics junkies. We plan to get back to it on Monday, August 22nd.
It concerns a young girl who escapes from a sinister facility where they are conducting experiments on ... Read more »