Movie Reviews
Doctor Strange
I understand this is the fourteenth film in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” (MCI), with many, many more to come. (Does anyone else think it odd that stories like this used to be Grade-Z serials at the movies? That they were made for adolescents who really had no life? Come to think of it, that hasn’t really changed all that much.) I broke my rule of not going to any more gigantic movies ... Read more »
Miami Blues
The wonderful Charles Williford wrote four books about Hoke Mosely, a sometimes inept cop, and then died. After seeing this one, I had hoped there might be more, but so far there hasn’t been. Damn! They would be worth making for the titles alone: New Hope for the Dead, Sideswipe, and The Way We Die Now. Are those great titles, or ... Read more »
Easter Parade
Produced at MGM by Arthur Freed. Songs by Irving Berlin. Dancing by Fred Astaire and Ann Miller. Singing by Judy Garland. What else do you need to know? Not much, really. The story is paper thin, and concerns Fred looking for a dance partner after breaking up with the old one. He makes a drunken bet that he can pair with the next dancer he sees, who happens to be Judy in a chorus line in a ... Read more »
Jackie
For people of my generation, it is impossible to see that bloody pink dress with bits of JFK’s brains still on it without choking up. This is a fairly good telling of the assassination, death, and then the following four days of national mourning when Jackie was a rock, an iron lady, orchestrating every last detail of the state funeral, giving the nation something to remember as we dealt ... Read more »
Don’t Think Twice
Modern “Improv” as we know it today began in Chicago with a group called The Compass Players, later Second City. Among the alumnae who later made it big were Nichols and May, Stiller and Meara, and Shelley Berman. What you do is, you all go out on stage without a script of any kind, and make up comedy as you go along. You gotta be fast, and you gotta be funny. I’d rather have my appendix ... Read more »
Sherlock
Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a really good series crash and burn quite as spectacularly as this one just did. I was awed and horrified as the three episodes went from weak, to pretty bad, to fucking awful. I’ll deal only with the last one, The Final Problem. And jeez, if they keep on like this I sure hope it’s the final problem. ... Read more »
Suspect Zero
This could have been a decent thriller about a serial killer except for its insistence of bringing in the hogwash known as “remote viewing.” Look it up if you don’t know what it is. There is a DVD extra where the director, E. Elias Merhige, a true believer, conducts an “experiment” wherein someone returns astonishing results. It is laughable. The leader of the exercise uses methods of cold ... Read more »
Patriots Day
The first of two films about the Boston Marathon bombings. Slated to come out later this year is Stronger, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tatiana Maslany. That one will focus on one real-life couple: Jeff Bauman, who lost both his legs, and his girlfriend Erin Hurley. This one attempts to tell the larger story of what happened from the bombing itself to the killing ... Read more »
Miss Sloane
Jessica Chastain is a super-lobbyist and a really unpleasant person. You just know that if you met her, you would hate her on sight. We meet her when she is testifying before Congress about something, then we flash back to a month before and follow the trail of nastiness and unethical behavior that led up to it. I can’t say a lot more as there is a twist ending that I did Read more »
La La Land
Thank you, Damien Chazelle, for giving me La La Land. Watching it, I kept wondering if this was the first time I had really smiled in 2017. (It’s not been a good year.) I mean, it had me from the first minute, when hundreds of people stepped out of their cars stalled on the freeway and began to sing and dance. It is one of the most delightful and astonishing ... Read more »