Movie Reviews
United 93
At 8:42 AM on September 11, 2001, United Flight 93 took off from Newark Airport headed for San Francisco. Aboard were 40 human beings (33 passengers, 7 crew) and four men who looked just like human beings but were actually monsters. Shortly afterward, shouting “Allahu akbar!” (which in the past has translated as “God is great!” but lately has often meant “God ... Read more »
Blades of Glory
Will Ferrell is a hit or miss guy. I gave up watching “Saturday Night Live” a long time ago, so I don’t know much about his work there, but the clips I’ve seen are good. I first noticed him in Elf, which I liked a lot except for the ending. I liked him in Melinda and Melinda, The ... Read more »
The Uninvited
A young woman, Anna (played by a young Australian actress named Emily Browning, who was Violet in the Lemony Snicket movie) witnesses her invalid mother killed in an explosion, tries to commit suicide, and spends some time on a mental ward. When she comes home she and her sister begin to suspect that Daddy’s new girlfriend, who used to be Mommy’s nurse, might have murdered their ... Read more »
The Uninvited
Ray Milland and sister Ruth Hussey in a haunted house in England. This movie doesn’t intend to scare the pants off of you, though there are some eerily disturbing scenes. What sets it apart is its good sense of humor, mostly in Ray Milland’s skeptical character who gradually comes to believe in the ghost, yet still can’t take it too seriously.
Unforgiven
CONTAINS SPOILERS. There’s a lot of actors who could have made this movie work fairly well, as a routine action western. But only Clint Eastwood could have elevated it to the status of a classic, and that’s simply because he’s the last credible mythic western movie star, from the tail end of the golden age. He was no John Wayne, and that was a good thing, because ... Read more »
Unforgettable
I have a feeling that in a month or two, maybe three, I won’t remember a thing about this movie. Ray Liotta is a medical examiner in Seattle who was accused of murdering his wife, and got off because of tainted evidence that was thrown out. Most people still believe he did it, and he’s desperate to find the real killer. Linda Fiorentino is a scientist who has made some kind of serum from ... Read more »
An Unfinished Life
Sometimes I wonder about some of these big stars of my generation. Jane Fonda doesn’t make a movie for 15 years, and then what does she pick? The fairly awful comedy Monster-in-Law. Barbra Streisand isn’t around for years, then pops up in the cash-in sequel Meet the Fockers. What’s the deal here?
Robert Redford ... Read more »
Unfaithfully Yours
I just discovered something of trivial interest. In 1948 George Orwell wrote his masterpiece 1984, picking the year by reversing the last two digits. In the same year Preston Sturges wrote, produced, and directed this … and in 1984 it was remade with Dudley Moore in the Rex Harrison part!
Go see this one. Avoid the re-make like the plague.
Preston Sturges is one of my ... Read more »
The Bourne Ultimatum
This is without question the smartest, snappiest, most satisfying series of movies now in production. The audience has built over the years, and this one opened very, very big and had excellent reviews, so even though there are only three Robert Ludlum books about Jason Bourne and this one really seems to wrap up the story … when a series keeps raking in the dough like that you can never ... Read more »
Unfaithful
Diane Lane again, being unfaithful to Richard Gere. Just didn’t quite work for me.