Movie Reviews
Barbershop
One of those weird little pictures that lives or dies by whether you identify with the odd characters in an out-of-the-way little place. This one works, and I’m glad it found an audience. But … Cedric the Entertainer? He’s a very talented guy, but the name just irritates me.
The Wagons Roll at Night
I don’t know how they did it, but I wish more moviemakers today could do it. Studios in the old days could take a story that was entirely and utterly predictable and make it fun. Maybe it’s a nostalgia thing. Maybe in 70 years the by-the-numbers romances they’re making today that just look so awkward and predictable will look fresh and fun to the people of that time. Who ... Read more »
Sorcerer
Sorcerer (1977)and The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur) (France, 1953) We just saw the former film, me for the second time, Lee for the first. It’s been some years since I saw the latter, but I’ve seen it at least three times, so I remember it well. It struck me that it might be useful to review them both, to compare ... Read more »
Baraka
That’s not a typo; this film has nothing to do with our new president. This is a movie of images, some beautiful, some profoundly disturbing. No dialogue at all. If you have seen Koyaanisqatsi and/or Powaqqatsi, you’ll know what I mean. This one is by Ron Fricke, who worked on Koyaanisqatsi and then made this ... Read more »
The Wages of Fear
The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur) (France, 1953) and
Sorcerer (1977) We just saw the former film, me for the second time, Lee for the first. It’s been some years since I saw the latter, but I’ve seen it at least three times, so I remember it well. It struck me that it might be useful to review them both, to compare and contrast. For ...
Read more »
The Bank Job
Here’s a pearl beyond price: An action/caper/heist movie without a single car chase, impossible 20-story fall onto a wet napkin, gun battle where 10,000 rounds manage to hit nobody, or chase through a burning warehouse that produces no deadly smoke. Not only that, it’s all true! … well, mostly. It’s based on the Baker Street robbery that happened in London in 1971. It’s not that well-known ... Read more »
Bang the Drum Slowly
Here’s an unusual thing: A baseball movie with very little baseball in it. And something else: A movie about a dying athlete that doesn’t try to wring tears from you in any way it can. What a relief after the bathetic The Pride of the Yankees, which we saw just before. We see action on the field, but it’s single plays, mostly just to establish that these are ... Read more »
The Bandwagon
Fred Astaire is a washed-up vaudeville and movie hoofer. Tula Finklea (the birth name of Cyd Charisse, and was there ever a more fortuitous name change?) is a much younger étoile de ballet. They are convinced to share the stage in a Broadway musical written by Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant, to be directed by hot-shot Jack Buchanan. Jack decides to take the light-hearted script and turn ... Read more »
The Ballad of Jack and Rose
Written and directed by Arthur Miller’s daughter, Rebecca. In 1986 a washed-up hippie and part-time ecowarrior with a bad heart and a teenage daughter live on a beautiful island, but development is encroaching. He decides she needs a family … so he sort of buys one, and they just turn up one day, a woman and her two boys by different fathers. Surprise! She doesn’t react well.
Read more »
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Right after the ultra-violent The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah made this totally atypical elegy to the passing of the Old West. Well, in a way all his westerns were about the passing of the Old West, but this one is special. Peckinpah said this was his favorite of the films he directed. It’s a simple story. Jason Robards, Jr. is abandoned in the desert by his ... Read more »