Movie Reviews
Bedazzled
One of my favorite comedies of all time. Peter Cook—who died much too young—co-wrote it with his comedy partner Dudley Moore. Cook is the Devil, and Moore is a schmuck who can’t get the girl he loves to notice him. The Devil gives him seven wishes, each of which he screws up, naturally. (When he’s made a wish, the Devil says the magic words: “Julie Andrews!”) In ... Read more »
Becoming Jane
The problem, for me, with a romance story about an historical figure like Jane Austen is that we know going in that it will come to naught. She never married, so the only question is, what will screw up the great love of her life? In this case it’s class and money. The worthless aristocracy of the day never seemed to consider that they might do some actual work ... Read more »
The Bed Sitting Room
There is a short and happily diminishing list of movies I’d like to see but are very hard to find. They are not necessarily great movies—some of them are, but some are not even very good—but I saw them once, and would like to see them again. (There are also a few, like Kubrick’s Fear and Desire, that have hardly ever been seen by anyone, but have recently popped ... Read more »
Beautiful Creatures
At first I thought this might be that early movie by Peter Jackson, about the two girls who murder the mother of one of them in New Zealand (and one of them goes on to become the best-selling novelist Anne Perry), but that was Heavenly Creatures. That one starred Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey. This one stars Rachel Weisz and Susan Lynch. They are two strangers ... Read more »
The Beautiful Country
In Vietnamese the children of American G.I.s and Vietnamese women are called bui doi, which translates as “less than dust.” How horrible. I can certainly understand the bitterness of the people over all the horrors we visited on them, but it’s so unfair to take it out on the children. Binh is bui doi, too tall when he visits the marketplace, with hair that has a little bit of a curl and a ... Read more »
Beasts of the Southern Wild
It’s being touted as an Oscar contender, though it probably doesn’t have much chance of winning. We were quite impressed. It’s part fantasy, in the mind of a 6-year-old girl named Hushpuppy, who lives in a group of rugged individualists in a place called the Bathtub, on the wrong side of the levees. This place is several levels below a shanty town; it’s pretty much ... Read more »
The Beast With Five Fingers
Much better than the title would indicate. It’s not a horror film as we think of them today, though a few people get strangled. It’s more of a ghost story … though only a part of the ghost is involved. A partially paralyzed pianist has learned to play certain pieces with just his left hand. He’s bitter, and possibly crazy. He changes his will to leave everything to his nurse. Then he falls ... Read more »
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
There’s an interesting history here. Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen are friends (both are still alive!). Ray H. was working on a movie called Monster From the Sea and asked Ray B. if he’d like to do some script doctoring. Bradbury reported back that the studio might have a plagiarism problem, as there was a scene where the monster attacked a lighthouse that was ... Read more »
Bean
Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean television series is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Several times I’ve had to pause the tape because I was laughing so hard I hurt. So what happened here? Lack of imagination, I guess. The film consists largely of recycled stuff that was funny on the small screen but just doesn’t work here. See Johnny English.
Be Kind Rewind
Mos Def works in a tiny video store owned by Danny Glover, certainly the last one on Earth that rents VHS tapes. His friend is Jack Black, playing the usual crazy Jack Black verbal and physical volcano. Jack becomes magnetized by a nearby power plant (at which point we abandon all connection to reality, but that doesn’t have to be bad) and accidentally erases all the tapes in the shop. But ... Read more »