Movie Reviews
Titles starting with G
Get On Up
I have a great admiration for James Brown as a music maker, and have enjoyed listening to his stuff, but I can’t say I’m a big fan. I guess this southern white boy just grew up liking other genres better than R&B and funk. I know very little about his life story. But boy oh boy, the man could put on a show. He deserved every bit of his two unofficial titles: The Godfather of Soul, and ... Read more »
Get Out
Jordan Peele is part of the comedy team of Key and Peele, who I think are just about the funniest duo since Fry and Laurie. This is the first movie he has written and directed, and it could not be further removed from the sketch comedy they do. Every once in a while a movie comes along that’s not quite like anything you have ever seen, and this is one. Which sounds a little weird, because ... Read more »
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs
Google Translates renders the French title as Prepare Your Tissues. I like the title they went with better. And it’s quite an odd little movie. Gérard Depardieu is Raoul, married to Carole Laure as Solange. Things are not well between them. She is depressed, and he is distraught, believing that she is no longer interested in him. He accuses her of staring at a ... Read more »
Get Smart
Get Smart (2008) It’s time to reiterate my rule for reviewing comedy movies: I don’t recommend, I merely report whether or not I laughed, and if I laughed, was it a titter, a guffaw, a whoop, or some other quantity of mirth. Everybody laughs at different things, and if you recommend a comedy to someone, even someone you know well, there’s a good chance he or she will have a long, sour face ... Read more »
The Getaway
Once more Sam Peckinpah pushed the boundaries of violence in the movies. This is a pretty standard chase, but with some things that surprised me. The violence is all done well, particularly a tense scene of killers stalking each other in a sleazy hotel. Steve McQueen is given early release from prison by Ben Johnson, who has a lot of political clout. The price is he has to plan and pull ... Read more »
Ghost
In the same way that Groundhog Day is an almost perfect romantic comedy, this is an almost perfect romance for those who prefer their love stories straight up, without the twist of lemon. (I say “almost” perfect because I don’t really believe in perfection, but I couldn’t tell you a thing wrong with either film.) It would have been good anyway, but what really ... Read more »
Ghost (2nd review)
It’s just gotta be way up there on the list of best romantic dramas ever. I think it’s one of the hardest genres to get right, and this movie does everything right. That thing they call chemistry in the movies is actually pretty hard to quantify. You can’t really define it, but you know it when you see it. It is when the male and female ... Read more »
Ghost in the Shell
I know fuck-all about comic books, DC or Marvel or anything else, and fuck-even-less about manga, which I find totally incomprehensible. This was based on a manga that apparently was very popular. I’ve tried, and I can’t find much good to say about it. The design of the thing got some good reviews, and there’s no denying it’s extremely complex, but I think they went overboard. If you think ... Read more »
Ghost Rider
We try to make sure the probable 2 hours of crap is the second feature when we go to the drive-in, that way we can drive away if the second feature is Jackass, Part II. Forgot that principle once and had to sit through Alien Vs. Predator, and I’m still not completely recovered. Nicolas Cage works a lot (he’s got no less than ... Read more »
A Ghost Story
The perfect part for Casey Affleck, the most over-rated actor of his generation. Aside from a few minutes at the beginning where he can do his trademark mumbling and whispering, he spends the movie dressed in a white sheet with eyeholes in it, like he should be standing on your front porch, two feet tall, between Luke Skywalker and Snow White, holding out a bag and screaming for goodies. ... Read more »