Movie Reviews
The Wrestler
{{In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.}}
When I first heard those lyrics, on vinyl fresh out of the sleeve in 1968, I was moved to tears. And I wasn’t sure why. The ... Read more »
Busy Bodies
Laurel and Hardy in a sawmill. The mind reels at the havoc they could wreak in such a place, and they find every possible way. This is one of the films where they famously destroyed cars in interesting ways. I have seen them driving cars that have been squished almost flat from front to back, or side to side. One car was twisted in such a way that it was bent into an arc and could only ... Read more »
Wreck-It Ralph
… is the 52nd animated feature from Walt Disney studios. It was nominated for the Oscar but lost to Brave. The movie is an absolute visual delight. The story is a little weak, possibly because it sought to appeal to young children (an animated film, for kids? What’s that all about?), but there were plenty of other things to keep me ... Read more »
Bus 174
Documentary. In 2000 in Brazil a man took over a bus after a robbery went wrong. For most of the day he held 10 hostages as crowds swirled around, completely uncontrolled by the police, whose ineptitude is astonishing. All this was covered live by every TV station in Rio. The movie shows all this, and the conditions that produced this poor, confused, drug-addled young man, who saw his ... Read more »
BURN-E
How many Pixar animators does it take to change a light bulb? Thousands, apparently …
Normally I wouldn’t review an 8-minute short here, but this is special. It’s included on the DVD of WALL-E (or at least on the version I bought, which is the 3-disc edition; it’s on the first disc, with the feature), a little bonus for the buyer. And it is absolutely Read more »
Burlesque
This movie reminds me a little of Frankenstein’s monster. Take an arm from corpse A, a leg from corpse B, a head from … now where did I put that head? Igor, have you seen a spare head around here? So you take a little Showgirls without the full-frontal nudity (small-town girl comes to the Big City to make it), a little 42nd Street ... Read more »
World War Z
I’d call this a missed opportunity. The premise is preposterous, but many SF premises are. Here it is: From somewhere (we never find out where, but North Korea is suspected at first) a virus emerges that turns people into … well, they’re calling them zombies, but I saw no evidence that they were dead. They were just strong, and quick, and single-minded. They aren’t even looking to eat ... Read more »
Buried
Here is probably the ultimate claustrophobic movie. I recently watched Lebanon, which took place entirely inside an Israeli tank; this one takes place in a coffin buried somewhere in the Middle East. Ryan Reynolds is a truck driver who was kidnapped and knocked out. When he wakes up he finds he is buried in a coffin with nothing but a Zippo, a cell phone, and a ... Read more »
World’s Greatest Dad
I’m glad a read a little about this, as I had been assuming it was just another of those awful knockabout comedies Robin Williams has been wasting himself on for so long. I suppose I should issue a
SPOILER WARNING,
though I’m pretty sure this cat is out of the bag. Robin is a teacher at a high school, raising his son alone. Now, it’s well known that ... Read more »
The World’s Fastest Indian
Not a Comanche, nor a Sioux, nor a Navajo, nor a person from Bombay, but an Indian motorsickle. This movie is just a terrific little hoot, based on the true story of Burt Munro, a crazy old Kiwi who went from New Zealand to the Bonneville Salt Flats with his 1920 Indian in the 1960s, intending to break the land speed record for his class. He makes his own pistons, he’s never heard of ... Read more »