Movie Reviews
Whatever Works
Whatever Works (2009) I was a little suspicious of this one. I only saw a few clips from Larry David’s chief claim to fame, Curb Your Enthusiasm, (other than producing Seinfeld, and I guess I’m the only literate North American who never saw that show), and I had no trouble curbing mine. He is really at center stage here, and he won me ... Read more »
What tHe #$*! Dθ wΣ (k)πow!? (2005)
Come over here, dude. Yeah, you! You, looking up at all the tall buildings with a goofy smile on your face and the hayseeds in your hair. I got something for you …
Here’s a movie that was shot in Portland, Oregon.
Lee and I lived in Portland for a number of years!
There’s a guy, plays a bit part in this movie, also plays a Ferengi on one of the Star Trek series. ...
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Blade Runner
I hadn’t seen this since it was new, in theaters. The chief reason I rented it is that we’ve now visited some of the locations they used, including the fabulous Bradbury Building where Deckard killed Pris and fought it out with Roy Batty, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis-Brown house, which now sits forlornly atop a hill only a couple miles from our apartment, derelict, ... Read more »
What Did You Do in the war, Daddy?
Between 1941 and 1945 or ’46, most American males of a certain age were in one branch or another of what my dad always called “the service.” (He was in the Army Air Corps.) For just about all of them, it was the most intense experience of their lives to date, and for most of them, afterwards as well. And whether they were in the nightmare of combat or the endless boredom of the rear areas ... Read more »
Blackadder Back and Forth
The ever-craven Blackadder family has its last hurrah in this modern-day incarnation, made to be shown in the Millennium Dome in London. Intending to scam his friends, Edmund has Baldrick build a replica of Leonardo Da Vinci’s model for a time machine. But the blasted thing works! The first thing they see is a T. Rex eager to eat them. They slay it by slinging Baldrick’s filthy ... Read more »
Whale Rider
I didn’t like this quite as much as some of the critics … but don’t take that as a negative; I liked it quite a lot. And Keisha Castle-Hughes is about as good as it gets.
Black Swan
Here’s a film that will really knock you out. You may not understand it all—I didn’t—but it’s fascinating, audacious, and beautiful to look at. A young ballet dancer lands the part of Odette in Swan Lake, also playing the black swan. She is technically perfect, but the director keeps telling her she is too cold to play the black swan, that she doesn’t feel the ... Read more »
West Side Story
Surely one of the top 5 musical movies ever made. (The others? Let’s see … Singin’ in the Rain, The Boy Friend, An American in Paris, Les parapluies de Cherbourg, Cabaret, 42nd Street, Top Hat, Across the Universe … oh, bother … I’ll never get it down to five.) It was one of the biggest selling soundtrack albums of all time. I played it so often I wore it out, ... Read more »
The Black Stallion
For some reason this movie reminds me of Full Metal Jacket. Not that they have anything in common in terms of outlook or subject matter or anything else. It’s just that both movies have a first act that is pretty much perfect, and a second act that is just … very, very good. Each is really two movies shoved together, and might have been better if they had existed ... Read more »
Black Snake Moan
What this movie ‘bout, it be ‘bout de blues, dog! One man, his baby done lef’ him … for his younger brothah! I ax you, there be anyt’ing more likely to give a niggah de blues dan dat? And dis girl, she sleep around, don’t get no respect, and get whup upside her head. An dis other ... Read more »