Movie Reviews
The Lives of Others
What’s the worst job in the world? Sewage worker? Prostitute? Butt-buddy to Donald Trump? I’ve got one that can beat any of those (though it would be a photo finish with the last one): Spy. There is no filthier employment to be had anywhere. You deal in lies and betrayal, and even if you begin with a pure heart, even if you believe you’re fighting for life, liberty, and the pursuit of ... Read more »
Departures
The Japanese are a sentimental race, and they love their rituals. I mean, who else could make such a giant magilla about pouring a cup of tea? This movie is about a failed cello player who returns to his hometown and sort of accidentally gets a job as an “encoffiner,” a profession for which there is no American equivalent. (The ad said he would be assisting in departures, and he thought he ... Read more »
The Sea Inside
Based on a true story of a quadriplegic poet who fought for 30 years for his right to die, and when he was unable to convince the legislators and courts, was helped by friends.
I believe in the absolute right to die, not only for the physically disabled but for anyone who finds life intolerable. Any other point of view means you believe the state, or the church, or your neighbors own ...
Read more »
The Barbarian Invasions
Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, 2003. An excellent film that, at some moments, reminded me of Woody Allen at his best: intelligent people discussing ideas and remembering better days. (I don’t quite get what the title means, though it is mentioned a few times. It seems peripheral to the story.) A man is dying, and his estranged son has decided to ease father’s last ... Read more »
Burnt By the Sun
Oscar for Best Foreign Language. It’s 1936, not long before the world would begin the Great Patriotic War. But in Russia another horror is well under way: the Great Purge, when Stalin eliminated most of the Red Army’s officers and as many as two million others. Basically, anyone who had any chance whatsoever of challenging the paranoid, psychotic monster. Colonel Kotov (played by the ... Read more »
2018 Oscar Nominated Short Films.
It’s a new year so once again we made our way to the balcony of the Hollywood Theater to see the Oscar Nominated Shorts. This is the Portland Hollywood, not California. It’s a neighborhood on the east side of the river, bisected by Sandy Boulevard, and the theater is the last surviving Portland example of the architecture that used to be common for cinema palaces. It has an ornate exterior ... Read more »
Thoroughly Modern Millie
I saw this in Hollywood at the Cinerama Dome when it first came out. I was enchanted, and still am. I’ve always loved Julie Andrews, even in that sappy The Sound of Music. Films like The Americanization of Emily, Mary Poppins, and Victor/Victoria show her range, but she is best when she is singing and dancing ... Read more »
Madame Rosa
Translates as The Life Ahead. Simone Signoret is the title character. She is an elderly French Jew, a former prostitute, an Auschwitz survivor. She lives in the Belleville neighborhood of Paris, which at that time (maybe still, for all I know) was a real ethnic mix. She babysits for the whores on the street, and has two young men who live with her full time: ... Read more »
Broadway Melody of 1936
The story is totally clichéd. The script is lame. The acting is second-rate. Robert Taylor looks puzzled as to how he ended up on this sound stage at MGM when he was supposed to be at Universal filming Magnificent Obsession.
What’s good about it? The choreography is nice. Frances Langford is a pretty good singer. Buddy Ebsen, in his first film, does his ... Read more »
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
I was hoping that viewing this a second time, I might possibly get what it is that everyone seems to like so much about this film, which I thought was pretty silly the first time I saw it. Sorry, it looks even sillier now. I had to watch it when Lee was out of the house, because she said she wasn’t going to subject herself to it again. She was wise. But since we are soldiering through all ... Read more »