Movie Reviews
Titles starting with P
Paulette
Back in the ‘60s Paulette and her husband opened and ran a small neighborhood café, and seemed to have a ball doing so. We see all this in home movies playing under the credits, and it was smart to do that, because later in life she becomes a nasty old bitch and it would have been hard for me to stick with the story otherwise. Ten years ago, on September 11, 2001, her husband died. (No, ... Read more »
Pauly Shore is Dead
I didn’t bother to rent this, but I had to include it simply because when I saw it sitting on the shelf I felt a surge of joy. [Bite your tongue.] Reading it made me happy. [Bite your tongue.] Writing it down makes me happy. [Bite your tongue.] Pauly Shore is dead. Pauly Shore is dead. Pauly Shore is dead. [Bite your tongue. Bite your tongue. Bite your tongue.] Cheers me right up. [Bite ... Read more »
Pawn Shop Chronicles
Carl Hiaasen created some characters in one of his books, white racists who called themselves the White Clarion Aryans. One of them had been so traumatized by the hide-tanning his liberal parents gave him when he spoke a certain word (which we are no longer allowed to utter aloud, either, not even to quote or make a point) that he was not able to say the word “nigger.” They were the Read more »
The Pawnbroker
I saw this at an “art house” in East Lansing my first year at Michigan State. It hit me like a freight train. I had never seen a movie like it. Hollywood was still not into making really down and dirty, gritty movies yet. Things like The Blackboard Jungle, billed as hard-hitting, are very, very tame compared with this. I knew very little about the Holocaust, ... Read more »
Paycheck
You know what? Screw all kung-fu, karate, judo, jujitsu, knuckle-dusting, rasslin’ and calf ropin’. I cannot begin to estimate how many promising movies in the last 10 or 20 years have been totally destroyed by idiot directors (yes, I mean you, John Woo!) resorting to the line-‘em-up and knock-‘em-down school of chop-socky kick-out that ... Read more »
Payment Deferred
Charles Laughton plays a bank clerk desperately in need of money. He kills his nephew (a very young Ray Milland), and then hits it big in the currency speculation market. But the murder preys on his mind. He acts almost comically guilty; if anyone was actually hunting him he might as well have I DID IT! tattooed on his forehead. But it’s a good performance. The pacing is slow and the sound ... Read more »
The Peacemaker
This is among the most underrated thrillers I know of. I can’t help wondering if it’s because it was directed by a woman, Mimi Leder, who also did another film I liked a lot but no one else seemed to appreciate: Deep Impact. For my money, that one was miles above testosterone-fueled garbage like Independence Day. Or maybe my taste is ... Read more »
Peacock
I usually associate direct-to-DVD movies with the real junk, stuff that never had a chance to show up in theaters. This one is better than that. I guess it’s just hard to get a non-bloody psychological thriller booked anywhere these days. I guess we should be thankful for the DVD market … which everybody says will be dead in a decade, if not sooner. Peacock is the name of the small ... Read more »
Pecos Bill
This short was originally a part of Melody Time, and later released on video as part of the American Heroes tape, along with “Paul Bunyan.” But when they released the video of Melody Time in the U.S., they did a stupid thing. They either completely excised scenes (as when Bill is riding a cyclone), or ... Read more »
Pelle the Conqueror
The novel this is taken from is apparently the Danish equivalent of the French Les Miserables or the American Huckleberry Finn, sort of required reading, the novel that is most about Denmark. Which is a little ironic, since it is about a Swedish father and his son immigrating to Denmark to find work. But it was a four-volume work, ... Read more »