Movie Reviews
Finding Nemo
For a few years this was the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It was recently surpassed by Toy Story 3 and one of the Shrek films, but that may be just ticket-price inflation. Not that box office performance really has to have all that much to do with quality; some real stinkers have made hundreds of millions and some ... Read more »
Brother Bear
This is a gorgeous film to look at, but the story didn’t really get to me that much. It’s a simple tale, and rings true as an Indian legend, though I don’t know if it is one. It involves a boy wanting to become a man, but rejecting his assigned totem of the bear. His older brother is killed by a bear, who it turns out was just guarding her cub. The younger brother vows revenges, kills the ... Read more »
Tom Jones
DIRECTED by Tony Richardson
PRODUCED by Michael Balcon, Michael Holden, Oscar Lewenstein & Tony Richardson
SCREENPLAY by John Osborne
BASED ON A NOVEL by Henry Fielding
ORIGINAL MUSIC by John Addison
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Walter Lassally
PRODUCTION DESIGN by Ralph W Brinton
If you tortured me, if you tied me to a chair and showed me videos of ... Read more »
Lilo and Stitch
One of the few Disney features to be set in the present day. It’s also in an interesting and exotic setting: Hawaii. (Or, I notice that these days we’re supposed to spell it Hawai’i. Well, why not? I have to admire a language with only seven consonants, which includes words like Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa.) Teenager Nani and her younger sister Lilo have been recently orphaned, and a social ... Read more »
To Kill a Mockingbird
DIRECTED by Robert Mulligan
PRODUCED by Alan J Pakula
SCREENPLAY by Horton Foote
BASED ON THE NOVEL by Harper Lee
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Elmer Bernstein
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Russell Harlan
ART DIRECTION by Henry Bumstead
I don’t know if Lee will ever make a Top 25 Movies list, but if she does, the only movie on my list that I am Read more »
Nights of Cabiria
DIRECTED by Federico Fellini
PRODUCED by Dino De Laurentiis
WRITTEN by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli & Pier Paolo Pasolini
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Pasquale Bonagura & Nino Rota
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Aldo Tonti
ART DIRECTION by Brunello Rondi
(There is a spoiler at the end here, but it’s not something you ... Read more »
Rear Window
PRODUCED / DIRECTED by Alfred Hitchcock
SCREENPLAY by John Michael Hayes
BASED ON A STORY by Cornell Woolrich
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Franz Waxman
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Robert Burks
ART DIRECTION by J McMillan Johnson & Hal Pereira
This was another tough call. I’ve seen almost all of Hitchcock’s films, including some very early silents. There’s a lot of ... Read more »
Ikiru
DIRECTED by Akira Kurosawa
PRODUCED by Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni & Akira Kurosawa
SCREENPLAY by Sojiro Motoki
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Fumio Hayasaka
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Asakazu Nakai
PRODUCTION DESIGN by So Matsuyama
Kurosawa and Kubrick present a big problem to someone like me putting together a Top 25 list. You can’t put all their films on the list. ... Read more »
Treasure Planet
You really just never know. I wasn’t looking forward to this, the first of four early 21st century Disney features that I’ve never seen. The reviews were not very good, it was maybe the biggest box-office bomb for Disney since Fantasia, and the whole concept of retelling Stevenson’s Treasure Island with sailing ships in outer space ... Read more »
Bicycle Thieves
DIRECTED by Vittorio de Sica
PRODUCED by Guiseppe Amato & Vittorio de Sica
WRITTEN by Cesare Zavattini, Oreste Biancoli, Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci & Gerardo Guerrieri
BASED ON THE NOVEL by Luigi Bartolini
ORIGINAL MUSIC by Alessandro Cicognini
CINEMATOGRAPHY by Carlo Montuori
ART DIRECTION by Antonio ...
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