Movie Reviews
Titles starting with D
The Day After Tomorrow
If you ignore the fact that it is relentlessly stupid, poorly written, scientifically laughable, and totally predictable … it’s actually kind of good. By that I mean that sometimes I’m in the mood for a big, mindless adventure on the big, big, big screen, and today I was in that mood. This is a throwback to the old days of the big “disaster” movie, which was begun by ... Read more »
A Day at the Races
This was the second movie the Marx Brothers made at MGM. For me, it falls somewhere in the midrange of their films, though it was one of Groucho’s favorites. My own favorite is Duck Soup. I guess it’s a matter of taste. What I like most about the Marxes is what’s called “anarchic comedy.” They existed in a world of their own, and anyone and anything was a target ... Read more »
Day For Night
Day For Night (La nuit Américaine) (French, 1973) “Day for night” is the term for shooting through dark filters to make it appear that it’s nighttime. Unless you have a really good cinematographer, it looks really crappy. The French call it La nuit Américaine, a tribute to Hollywood, which invented the technique.
This movie is quite simply the best ever ... Read more »
Day of the Fight
This one is about 20 minutes. It’s a fair piece of documentary short, nothing more. Once again, nothing but his name in the credits would make you think it was Kubrick, unless it’s at the fight at the end, where he gets in close. It begins with some lame philosophizing about boxing, and then follows a boxer from getting up in the morning to the ten-rounder that night, which turns out to ... Read more »
The Day of the Jackal
How do you make a film about a man who is trying to assassinate Charles de Gaulle in 1963, when everyone knows he died in 1970, at the age of 80, more or less peacefully? By paying obsessive attention to detail, that’s how. This is based, very faithfully, on a book by Frederick Forsyth, and tells the imaginary story of how a man known only as the Jackal (Edward Fox, in the best role of his ... Read more »
The Day of the Jackal (second review, 2017)
Book and movie are both masterpieces, among the best thrillers I have ever read or seen. Frederick Forsyth worked a miracle here. How do you tell the story of an attempted assassination of Charles De Gaulle, when you know it didn’t work? By almost fanatical attention to detail, that’s how. We track the Jackal (a perfect performance by Edward Fox) from his hiring ... Read more »
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Pretty much exactly what I expected: an overblown remake of a classic that should have been left alone. Keanu Reeves plays Klaatu, the emotionless, expressionless alien. I’d say something about typecasting, but I’m sure every reviewer who touched this piece of crap has already made that joke, so I won’t. Gort the robot has spent the last 57 years pumping iron and shooting steroids, so he’s ... Read more »
The Day They Robbed the Bank of England
It’s 1901 and Irish rebels want to give one in the eye to the Brits by robbing England’s most prestigious bank. (You need a reference to open an account!) As the great Hugh Griffith puts it, “One hundred thousand pounds is a felony. A million pounds is a political statement.” So they bring in Aldo Ray, an American mining and architecture expert, to see if it can be done. And it can, but it ... Read more »
A Day Without a Mexican
We were looking forward to this one. It’s a great idea: All the Hispanics in Cahleefornia disappear one day, and the state is cut off from the rest of the world. It’s a situation ripe for satire, and there are a few laughs here and there. But the execution is dismal. The acting is bad, the cinematic technique is non-existent, and it switches right in the middle from light-hearted to soapy ... Read more »
De-Lovely
When I heard they were making a movie about Cole Porter I thought, How bad can it be? The answer is, it can’t be bad, not with all that delovely music, but it can sure fall short of what it might have been. There is a big problem with Cole Porter’s life, which is that the first and second acts are fabulous, but the third act is awful. He had everything: huge wealth, wit, talent, acclaim, a ... Read more »