Movie Reviews
Titles starting with J
Joe Versus the Volcano
This is one of those divisive films. By and large, you either love it or hate it. I’m one who loves it, madly. It was written and directed by John Patrick Shanley (the only film has he directed, as this one flopped), best known for Moonstruck and the recent Doubt. It is a fable that requires you to suspend your disbelief, as many things ... Read more »
Joe vs. the Volcano
When you win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, as John Patrick Shanley did for Moonstruck, you can pretty much write your own ticket for your next film, even if you want to write and direct. Just ask Michael Cimino. He won for The Deer Hunter, and then made Heaven’s Gate. And when your picture is as big ... Read more »
John Carter
We liked it well enough, without getting wild about it. From what I know of the books, which I’ve never read, it seemed fairly faithful. Much of it, particularly Dejah Thoris, looked nicely like those old Frazetta covers that were on the reissues which really brought Edgar Rice Burroughs back into public consciousness.
It was a huge bomb, and I think their problem making money ... Read more »
John Cleese on How to Irritate People
Should have been funny, mostly just … irritating. Michael Palin and Graham Chapman are aboard, as well as Connie Booth from “Fawlty Towers,” but nothing jells. I’m afraid that when these Pythons bring their gifts to mundane situations, the results are just mundane. They need something off the wall, surrealistic, to make it all happen.
John Dies at the End
No, not me, another John. The reason this interested me is that it was directed by Don Coscarelli, who also directed one of my favorite small, sleeper movies, Bubba Ho-Tep. That one was written by my favorite gonzo writer, Joe R. Lansdale, an East Texas boy like myself. This one was scripted by Coscarelli and based on a book by David Wong, which is the pseudonym ... Read more »
John Wick
I wasted two hours of my time watching this, and I almost hate to waste any more writing about it. But I will.
We all know by now that there is some sort of checklist producers hand out to writers and directors of films like this. These are plot and action points that must be followed to the letter. Things like:
The good guy is tied to a chair while the Big Bad Guy gloats ... Read more »
Johnny English
Rowan Atkinson is one of the funniest men alive, with his British television shows Mr Bean, The Thin Blue Line and, best of all, the Blackadder series, all of them 10 times as funny as anything that has ever been on American TV. So why are his movies so disastrous? Maybe that’s too harsh for Read more »
Johnny English Strikes Again
Once more it’s a case of Rowan Atkinson not being as funny on the big screen, with a big budget, as he is on TV with no budget at all. The premise is that Johnny English thinks he is far, far cooler than James Bond, but is actually a total incompetent. Once again, as in the first one, some of the jokes work, and some of them fall flat. Try looking at some Read more »
Johnny Mnemonic
I have only met Bill Gibson once, long ago, in Vancouver when we were at the same party. We were both “up and coming” writers then, though I had a little bit of a jump on him, having published several stories that had received some attention, while he had only sold a couple things. He may have usurped my title as the “Tallest Science Fiction writer” (if you don’t count 6’9” Michael ... Read more »