Movie Reviews
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
I’d recently seen the one you’ve probably seen, starring Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur, and I wanted to look at this one to see how it compared. The answer is: a lot better than you might expect. Yes, you do have to make allowances for the wild overacting by all the actors, but remember, they had little choice in the matter. A silent movie actor had to convey everything with gestures, ... Read more »
Ben-Hur
Yes, adding glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope, and stereophonic sound makes for a more exciting movie, but this is really very little different from the original version 34 years before. There were more ships in the original sea battle, but they interacted better in this one. The chariot race in this one is a bit longer, but so is the whole movie, and not to its benefit. If ... Read more »
Bend it Like Beckham
Children of immigrants growing up in a different culture has become a genre all to itself, and this is one of my favorites.
Bellman and True
When I learned that this had been cut down from a 150-minute TV series to a 117-minute theatrical release, a few things became clearer. Namely, why much of it seems so disjointed. It’s probably why a movie that had so many good parts in it just never quite came together for me. A systems engineer and computer expert (Bernard Hill, using a computer that is laughably antique these days) is ... Read more »
Being Julia
A 45-year-old acclaimed actress is dealing with the fact that her star may be fading. She has an affair with a younger man, he dumps her, and she gets her revenge. The details of the story didn’t go the way I expected, and I liked that. I didn’t believe the ending for a minute, but I didn’t mind that, because it was so clever. Annette Bening is so much fun to watch that she makes this ... Read more »
Being John Malkovich
Until Adaptation came along, this movie was in a class by itself. Now there is a genre to itself: Charlie Kaufman movies. And I am a big fan. In only half a dozen movies he has established himself as the most exciting writer working in Hollywood today. I am looking forward to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless ... Read more »
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
I’m currently reading Dirty Money by Richard Stark (actually Donald Westlake, one of my all-time favorite writers). His character, Parker, is always getting tripped up by dealing with amateurs at the heist business. This is the story of a heist planned by two brothers with no experience but a desperate need for money. How desperate? They decide to rob their own ... Read more »
Before Sunset
It’s even better. The budget is listed as $10 million at the IMDb, and I can’t believe that. The budget for Before Sunrise was $2.5 million, and this is simpler and shorter and has only a few locations and a small crew. Inflation, or star salaries? Whatever … it was developed by Linklater, the director, and by Hawke and Delpy, rehearsed for two weeks, and ... Read more »
Before Sunrise
Wow. A really different movie doesn’t come along that often. This is one. At first glance it might not seem it. Boy meets girl … and we’re already off to a clichéd start, right? But then, boy and girl spend the night walking and talking through Vienna, and that’s all the movie is about. No phony action, no lurid sex. Just conversation. They are very young (from my perspective), and ... Read more »
Beetlejuice
This was such a disappointment. It started out so fresh and funny, and then got stupid. What I could not abide was that there was a book, a guide to the afterlife, and if the couple had simply read it, as everyone else did, they could have avoided everything that happened to them. Known in the trade as the ... Read more »