Movie Reviews
Topper (Second Review)
I first came to the weird world of Thorne Smith’s Topper by way of the television series that was spun off from this movie. There was something strangely attractive to me about people who could vanish and re-appear at will. I was a faithful viewer. The movie is much superior. There were two sequels, but neither of them had the star power of Constance Bennett (who ... Read more »
Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman
Every once in a while there is a classic, well-reviewed movie that I, in spite of being a film buff, have never seen. And in an even greater while, it turns out that I don’t like it. Wuthering Heights was such a film. This is another. I’m not sure if they used that complete title above, which was the title of the book, but it’s about an ordinary working girl, a “white collar” girl. She ... Read more »
Klute
This movie proves you don’t have to shoot in black and white to make a noir film. The camera work is arty, with a lot of shots from a fair distance away, and with the action not centered conventionally. It sometimes draws attention to itself, but I didn’t think that was a real problem. Usually it enhanced the feeling of dread, as did the music. I’m not the first one to point out that ... Read more »
An Old Fashioned Thansgiving
I grew interested in Tatiana Maslany after seeing her in the first several seasons of Orphan Black, where she played eight major characters and a dozen minor ones, often in the same scene. I don’t know of any other actors who could pull that off. She says she has been acting since age nine, in her native Regina, Saskatchewan, then moving to Toronto and getting ... Read more »
America in Color
I am totally opposed to the colorization of classic (or even recent) black and white films. I view it as vandalization. However, using the process on old newsreel or home movie footage yields results that are surprisingly effective. The process has come a long way since the ‘80s, when Ted Turner and others first started using it. This series, from the Smithsonian Channel, takes film from ... Read more »
The Vietnam War
We are great fans of the documentaries of Ken Burns, have seen just about all of them. This is his latest, ten parts, eighteen hours of film that can be very hard to watch. I guess no male of my generation should review this series until after he has answered the question, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy-O? Short answer: Hell no, I didn’t go. And I’ve never been ashamed of it for one ... Read more »
Kansas City
I thought I had seen this before, and thought I hadn’t liked it too much, but since we are dutifully working our way through all the films of Robert Altman, great, good, and so-so, I resigned myself to seeing it again. And, oh my, was I wrong! I must have been thinking of some other film set in Kansas City, because this one is superb. It is 1936 and Blondie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) sets out ... Read more »
Three Days of the Condor (Second Review)
One of my favorite thrillers. It is taken from a book by James Grady, Six Days of the Condor. Cutting the time in half works well for a movie. Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway have good chemistry together. My one caveat is that Redford is really too pretty to play a bookworm working for a small CIA operation. Dustin Hoffman might have been an easier sell in that ... Read more »
The Music Man (Second Review)
I love musicals, and this is a damn near perfect one. I can’t think of a single musical number that I didn’t care for. The plot is terrific and funny and touching. It gets right into it with a great opening number, “Rock Island,” with all the traveling salesmen talking along with the rhythm of the train they are on, and it just keeps on coming at you with songs like “Marian the Librarian,” ... Read more »
All the President’s Men
It’s hard to think of an unlikelier book to make a movie from. I mean, the book is exciting, fascinating, and tells a very important story, but let’s face it, watching two guys banging away at their typewriters or buttonholing worried members of the Nixon Administration is not the stuff thrillers are made of.
So Robert Redford brought in William Goldman, one of the greatest ... Read more »