He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Telling too much about this one would spoil the surprise, and it’s a big surprise, and very well done. Jaw-dropping, with Audrey Tautou playing completely against the type she established in Amelie. Very highly recommended.

Head

This isn’t the worst film that tried to cash in on the peace and love phenomenon. That would be the abomination by Otto Preminger called Skidoo, which came out in the same year. This plays like some misbegotten mash-up of A Hard Day’s Night and Help! There is no story as such, but ... Read more »

Head in the Clouds

I was left wondering why this film got made. It cost $43 million, and made back less than half a million. One weekend gross was listed as $72. Not thousand dollars. Dollars! All I can figure is that Charlize Theron wanted to make another film with her boyfriend, who co-stars. But did she have that kind of clout when this pic was lensed, as they say in Variety? ... Read more »

Headhunters

Aksel Hennie is Roger Brown, a corporate headhunter, a man who finds the perfect person for any upper-level job. He’s real good at it, but he’s a little guy married to a Norwegian Valkyrie easily a head taller than he is, and he feels compelled to provide her with the life-style he assumes she feels she is entitled to. His job isn’t enough, so he has a sideline of going into houses and ... Read more »

The Healer

Got off to an interesting start, but quickly became very soapy, overwritten and overacted. When it began to look like a Christian thing, a tale of a woman who regains her faith through a miracle, we bailed out. Maybe we were being unfair, but the fact is we just weren’t that interested. [Don’t you think there should be a separate section for faith-based movies? Or at least a warning ... Read more »

HealtH

Not a typo. Also known as H.E.A.L.T.H, and just plain Health. It is an acronym: Happiness, Energy, And Longevity Through Health. I can’t resist pointing out that the title in Germany was Der Gesundheitskongress.

When a male lion is defeated by a younger male, the first thing the new king does is kill ... Read more »

The Heartbreak Kid

A young man who is having an affair with an older, married woman falls in love with her daughter. Not a very nice thing to do, I think we’d all agree. Hideously inappropriate behavior. But we like Benjamin in The Graduate, because though he’s not man enough (he’s 18) to own up to it with the daughter, he struggles with it. He knows he’s behaved badly. We like ... Read more »

Heartbreakers

I most often associate Sigourney Weaver with roles where her femininity is, if not precisely suppressed, is not exactly emphasized. Her famous Alien action-adventures, of course, but also more thoughtful parts like in The Guys, The Ice Storm, The Year of Living Dangerously (at the ... Read more »

Heartburn

I kept thinking, a film written by Nora Ephron, from her novel, starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, directed by Mike Nichols, ought to be a lot better than this. I didn’t like these people much, and I wasn’t interested in their marital problems. It was clearly based on Ephron’s own life, and I think it was a mistake for her to turn it into an experience she felt she had to share with ... Read more »

Hearts of the West

I love movies about making movies. Nickelodeon, The Stunt Man, Singin’ in the Rain, Ed Wood, 8½, Day For Night, Adaptation … these movies vary in quality, and some of them are completely wrong about how ... Read more »