Movie Reviews
Titles starting with A
Airplane!
(Second review) (Very much like the first one!) Every once in a while a movie comes along that changes everything. The Birth of a Nation was one. It changed the very size of movies. This one, I think, changed what comedy movies could be. There were many imitators after it, including Airplane II: The Sequel, ... Read more »
Akahige
Between 1948 and 1965 Toshirô Mifune made 16 films with Akira Kurosawa. They were the Japanese equivalent of John Wayne and John Ford, though the Japanese pair had more range than the two Johns. ... Read more »
Akeelah and the Bee
Yes, it’s the classic underdog story so beloved of Hollywood, and yes, you can tell just about everywhere it’s going to go after the first ten minutes … and yet, sometimes that just works. It could have been about football, or chess, or swimming, or just about any competitive human activity (or horse racing), but it’s about spelling, and it manages to pull a rabbit ... Read more »
Aladdin
This may not be the absolute best of the decade-long Disney Renaissance (that would be either The Little Mermaid or {{Beauty and the Beast), but I think most people would agree that it’s the funniest. It barrels right along, full of action and song, for the first third, doing quite well, and then everything is amplified, ramped up a notch, and thrown into anarchy ... Read more »
The Alamo
In Texas, when I went to school, the entire 7th grade history class was devoted to The Great and Glorious Lone Star State. It was taught from a silly little comic book that, for all I know, is still in use in the 7th grade, because when I visited the Read more »
Albert Nobbs
I’m going to start out with a minor SPOILER WARNING . Minor, because I suspect most moviegoers knew this going in. But Lee didn’t, so I’ll be careful. If you want to be surprised, stop here, and come back when you’ve seen the movie.
Albert Nobbs is a woman who has passed for a man for many years, in order to be able to get jobs. ... Read more »
Alexander
It had to happen, after Gladiator (the most overrated film since that piece of crap Braveheart, in my opinion) won the Best Picture Oscar. The lemmings of Hollywood immediately put a series of sword, sandal, ... Read more »
Alfie
Anticipating that Alfie, The Remake might leave something to be desired, we rented both of them and watched the new one first. This review will refer to both of them, as after watching the new one I was inspired only to a jape, below.
I’d forgotten just how good this movie is. Alfie Elkins is one of the most fully-realized and complex ... Read more »
Alfie
This movie just makes me want to … break into song, like a movie musical! Pretend I’m Howard Keel. First a song to the writer/director, Charles Shyer, and then to the star, Read more »
Alice
A sweet little slice of magical realism here. Mia Farrow is one of those useless rich women who spend their days shopping, lunching with other useless women, and visiting beauty spas. The only significant thing she does is pick up her two children, who are naturally being raised by a nanny, from their snooty school. Here she meets jazz musician Joe Mantegna, and they fall for each other. ... Read more »