Movie Reviews
Our Man in Havana
Here’s something unusual. A comic spy story from Graham Greene. He wrote the screenplay as well as the novel, and it seems the movie had more of a comic touch than the book, which I haven’t read. The cast is terrific: Alec Guinness, Noël Coward, Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara, Ralph Richardson, and Ernie Kovacs. The story concerns Guinness trying to support a loving daughter with rather ... Read more »
A Look Into the 23rd Century
Here’s a little “Making of” documentary about Logan’s Run. It’s only nine minutes long, and the reason I wanted to see it is that the movie was directed by my friend Michael Anderson, who also directed my own movie, Millennium, thirteen years later. Michael is briefly interviewed, as well as Michael York and the producer, and scenes of ... Read more »
In Old Chicago
In Old Chicago (1937) Daryl Zanuck made this hoping to cash in on the success the previous year of San Francisco. Both films end in the destruction of a great American city. The Great Chicago Fire happened in 1871, but did you know that, on that same day, there were several other fires in the area? Two hundred and fifty miles north of ... Read more »
Quartet
Quartet (2012) Way back in 1978 Dustin Hoffman began directing a nice little film called Straight Time. But he found it too demanding to both direct and star in the picture, so he handed it off to Ulu Grosbard, a Belgian. Other than that, he has directed no movies until this one. It’s not bad, and considering he’s now a senior citizen like me, even the choice of ... Read more »
Warm Bodies
Just when you think a genre is totally burned out, that there’s nothing else you could possibly do with it, somebody comes up with an idea that has a bit of freshness to it. In this case, it’s the zombie movie. And the new idea is, why not tell a zombie story from the point of view of the zombie?
It will only work if you stick more or less to the conventions of the zombie movie. So ... Read more »
Side Effects
Stephen Soderbergh has said he will retire, or at least take a hiatus, from movie directing. If so, this and Behind the Candelabra, which he did for HBO and I haven’t seen yet, could be his final films. And if he sticks to it, the world will have lost one of its best directors. Aside from the very successful commercial Oceans films, his ... Read more »
Back From Eternity
If a story really appeals to you, why not make it again for a new generation, right? Hitchcock did it, and so did Frank Capra. That must be how John Farrow was feeling, too, as he made this exact same story in 1939 as Five Came Back. But that one had a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and Nathaniel West. This one was scripted by someone I’ve never heard of, John ... Read more »
Cloud Atlas
Cloud Atlas (2012)
1849, Pacific Ocean. A businessman dealing in slaves is being slowly poisoned by the ship’s doctor.
1936, Cambridge, England and Edinburgh, Scotland. A young homosexual composer moves in with an elderly composer to help him out.
1973, San Francisco. A girl reporter works to expose a sinister plot by Big Oil, involving a nuclear ... Read more »
The Way to the Stars
The Way to the Stars (1945) For some reason this was re-titled Johnny in the Clouds for American release. It was Trevor Howard’s first real film role (his first was uncredited) and an early bit part for Jean Simmons. The cast is a roll call of some of the best British stars and character actors of the day: Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Stanley Holloway, Basil Radford, David Tomlinson, many ... Read more »
Beast From Haunted Cave
In the opening credits it says “The producers would like to thank the people of South Dakota, without whom this picture would not have been possible.” I suspect the people of South Dakota are still trying to recover. It was a Corman production (not Roger, but his older brother Gene), and one of the stars was Sinatra (not Frank, or Frank Jr., or even Nancy, but Richard, the son of Frank’s ... Read more »