Movie Reviews
Brats
This Laurel and Hardy two-reeler is different in several respects. For one, though there are four characters, there are only two actors: L&H. No bit players. The idea is that Stan and Ollie are in a house playing checkers, and their little sons are across the room playing with their toys. This was done by making all three sets—a living room, and bedroom, and a bathroom—twice, once at ... Read more »
The Boys of 2nd Street Park
Engrossing small movie about a group of mostly Jewish boys who grew up in Brighton Beach in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Nothing too surprising; they go through the changes we all went through in that generation: hanging out together, high school, getting into drugs and/or Vietnam, marriages, breakups, tragedies. It’s all handled very well, and though the urban setting is totally alien to me, a ... Read more »
The Boys & Girl From County Clare
The box just said “The boys …” but the movie started with the title above, so I’m going with that one. In the UK it was released as The Great Ceili War. Ceili is a type of Irish music.
Two brothers who haven’t seen each other for 20 years bring competing bands to the Isle of Man for a competition. They have issues going way back. Who will win? It ...
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Wild Hogs
We usually approach the second feature with a lot of trepidation, but my mom and sister liked this, so … and what do you know? It’s funny! Silly and predictable, sure, and far from a classic, but it earns its laughs as long as all you expect is a competent entertainment. Lord knows those are rare enough these days.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
There have been so many Holocaust movies made that you’d think there was no new angle to come at it from. And yet, this movie (adapted from a juvenile book) manages to. It’s all seen through the eyes of Bruno, an 8-year-old whose father is a Nazi SS officer transferred to the country to run a concentration camp. The son finds the barbed wire and makes friends with a Jewish boy his age on ... Read more »
Bowling for Columbine
I can hardly express how much I hated this movie. I should first say where I’m coming from. I do not like firearms. I’ve never owned a gun. I’ve fired a shotgun once, and a .22 rifle once. I believe the Second Amendment provides for “a well-regulated militia,” not the right of every 9-year-old or psychotic yahoo to own artillery pieces. I am in favor of gun control; I believe ... Read more »
Bowfinger
Shortly after seeing the perfectly awful Norbit, I was browsing through Eddie Murphy’s credits for the titles of some of the almost equally awful movies he’s made recently, and I came across this. How I missed it when it was new I don’t know. I mean, Eddie Murphy back when he was often funny, Steve Martin back when Read more »
The Bourne Supremacy
A real rarity, a sequel that lives up to the first one. What a pleasure to see smart people in a thriller. Jason Bourne reacts with lighting speed to absolutely anything the hostile world throws at him. A little too fast to be strictly believable of course, but that’s what you go to a movie like this. As long as it doesn’t insult my intelligence, I’m willing to go along with stuff. The ... Read more »
The Bourne Legacy
First question: Is it as good as the original trilogy, which in my mind were damn near perfect action/thrillers? Answer: No. Second question: Does it suck? Answer: No. It’s pretty good. Lee and I both enjoyed it. It’s a bit convoluted at first, I had trouble understanding just what the drugs these super-operatives were taking were supposed to do. There was a gobbledygook “scientific” ... Read more »
The Wild Bunch
My favorite western of all time. Picture this: Bill Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan, and Ben Johnson. My god, they’d plow through The Magnificent Seven like Panzers through Belgium. They’d eat John Wayne and Randolph Scott for lunch, and chew up Clint Eastwood for an appetizer.
The tension in this film starts right with ... Read more »