Movie Reviews
Musashi Miyamoto
This winner of the last “honorary” Oscar for Best Foreign Language film, before the award finally became an official competitive category, is the first of what is known as the Samurai Trilogy. All of them deal with Miyamoto, a 17th century warrior who is greatly admired in Japan. I think of him as a sort of Sir Lancelot, except he was real. The other films are called Read more »
Black Orpheus
I don’t know what Italy had to do with this Brazilian film, but that’s what it says at Wiki, and they usually know what they’re talking about when it comes to movies. It was done on a shoestring budget, and the director, a Frenchman named Marcel Camus, actually slept in the park some nights, he was that broke.
I’m afraid this just isn’t my kind of film. It is a retelling of the ... Read more »
Sweet Charity
Lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Cy Coleman, book by Neil Simon, from the film Nights of Cabiria by Federico Fellini. This is one of my all-time favorite musicals. It doesn’t hurt that I saw it on Broadway in the 1986 revival starring Debbie Allen, once again choreographed by Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. She was superb. The show was superb. I laughed and I cried. ... Read more »
Wonder Woman
I broke my resolution to never bother myself with another superhero movie and rented this one. Some people told us it was good, and the reviews were quite good. So what was the result? Some good and some bad. I’m not really sure which one outweighs the other.
The good: I liked the opening a lot. It told the story of a battle of the Greek Gods, how they were destroyed with only Ares ... Read more »
A Damsel in Distress
Written by P.G. Wodehouse, from his novel. Directed by George Stevens. Music by George Gershwin. Starring Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and a 1936 Cord 810 convertible coupe. Choreography by Astaire and Hermes Pan. How bad could it be? Well, if you discount the fact that the plot is pretty silly, not bad at all. And if you come to a 1930s Astaire film looking ... Read more »
Mon Oncle
In France the pipe, hat, trench coat, and umbrella of Monsieur Hulot is as well-known as the derby, shabby suit, mustache, and cane of Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Jacques Tati only made six actual films (plus some shorts and other marginalia), and four of them featured Hulot. I’ve seen four of his films, and three of them are masterpieces of comedy. (I could not get into Read more »
La Strada
I was browsing through the first few reviews of this movie at Rotten Tomatoes and came upon an idiot who shall not be named who gave it one star and had this to say: “Good luck staying awake.” Damn! Why can’t morons like that just stick to watching the latest Avengers or X-Men or Transformers mindless comic ... Read more »
Gate of Hell (地獄門 (Jigokumon)
Hey, look, I was able to copy and paste Japanese ideograms! This was the 7th film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Wiki informs me that it is a Jidaigeki film, which means “period drama.” These are most often set in the Edo period, 1603 to 1858. Quite a long period! This one, directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa, happens quite a bit earlier, in 1159. ... Read more »
Secret Honor
Here is the prologue: “This work is a fictional meditation concerning the character of and events in the history of Richard M. Nixon, who is impersonated in this film. The dramatist’s imagination has created some fictional events in an effort to illuminate the character of President Nixon. This film is not a work of history—or a historical recreation. It is a work of fiction, using ... Read more »
Tanner on Tanner
It is now sixteen years later. Tanner lost the nomination (it inexplicably went to the totally colorless Michael Dukakis, the worst Democratic decision until 2016), and his daughter is trying to make a documentary about her father’s run for the White House. She is pretty much a disaster at all aspects of filmmaking. Her rough cut is shown at a film festival and falls totally flat. She is ... Read more »