Movie Reviews

The Night Manager

(UK, 2016)

There have been quite a few good movies made from John le Carré’s novels but they have, of necessity, been trimmed down so they fit in a two-hour time frame. Because they are even denser than your normal novel, much detail has to be cut. But I think the natural format for his books is the mini-series.

I can prove it, too. In 2011 an excellent movie was made from his book Read more »

Roger Corman’s Death Race 2050

(2016)

I watched this ten or twenty minutes at a time over a week on Netflix, early in the morning when I couldn’t get to sleep. There’s no way in the world that I would recommend this to anyone … but I will say there are some good things in it, and if you are ever in the mood for a splatter movie that is pretty funny in places, you could do worse.

I don’t think I ever saw the original, ... Read more »

Arrival

(2016)

Well, Klaatu Barada Nicto, y’all! I know there have been other films since The Day the Earth Stood Still back in 1951 where aliens come to Earth and do not intend to eat us or enslave us, and I could probably think of some if I tried, but the fact is they are greatly outnumbered by films like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. This is the ... Read more »

A Hard Day’s Night

(UK, 1964)

Watching this for the first time in many years, I was surprised to find that it’s not nearly as wonderful as I remember it. In fact, in many ways, it’s not even very good at all.

The best things first. Best of all is Richard Lester’s direction, particularly in the musical numbers. Each one is handled differently, and they blew our collective minds in 1964. Lester is credited, ... Read more »

Empire of the Sun

(1987)

If you have a strong stomach, you should try reading about the six-week series of atrocities known as the Rape of Nanking. The invading Japanese Army indulged in an orgy of executions and rapes of Chinese civilians. (There are some fucking Japs [and I use the term deliberately to insult these assholes; if it offends you, go fuck yourself] who to this day deny it happened at all!) Accurate ... Read more »

Smilla’s Sense of Snow

(Denmark, Sweden, Germany, 1997)

I’m always sad when a movie starts out showing a great deal of promise, and then loses it. And I really was enjoying it. Julia Ormond is fascinating as Smilla, who is half Danish and half Greenlandic … well, technically Greenland is part of Denmark, but 88% of the population is Inuit, the people we used to call Eskimos. She is half Inuit. She spent her early life in Greenland and is now ... Read more »

A Sound of Thunder

(USA, UK, Czech Republic, Germany, 2005)

A Sound of Thunder (2005) (USA, UK, Germany, Czech Republic) Here’s one more example of someone taking a classic SF story and totally ruining it. Every once in a while someone gets it right. Philip K. Dick has done reasonably well with short stories, though there are plenty of turkeys, too. Heinlein’s All You Zombies was made into an excellent, and totally ... Read more »

Grand Canyon

(1991)

The only reason a white man of a certain economic class, driving a luxury car, could have for driving through Inglewood at night is to be returning home from a Lakers game at the Forum. Kevin Kline decides to drive around some traffic by taking back streets. His car breaks down and five gangbangers surround him. He is about to get the shit beat out of him when he is saved by the arrival of ... Read more »

Our Kind of Traitor

(UK, 2016)

There’s no one better in the world for spy stories than John le Carré. He is also maybe the luckiest novelist in the world, because well over half of his books have been made into movies, and there is not a bad one in the lot. I’ve seen all but two of them. Several of them are actual masterpieces, such as the Alec Guinness version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, ... Read more »

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