Movie Reviews
A Bridge Too Far
William Goldman, who adapted the screenplay from the book by Cornelius Ryan, wrote a whole book about the making of this huge movie. It’s a good read, full of excellent anecdotes about the huge problems entailed in the filming. In particular the critical hour, which was all the time they had to shoot all the scenes on a bridge in Holland. It was as intricate an operation, in its way, as ... Read more »
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
We have been on a real roll with fantasy movies lately, enjoying The BFG, Pete’s Dragon, and the new Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. This one continues the streak. We really liked it, and I can’t understand why the reviews weren’t any better. Once more, as in the above, today’s incredible special effects were put to ... Read more »
Cleopatra
There are so many superlatives associated with this film that I couldn’t possibly cover them all except at book length. I’ll mention just a few. The Alexandria set was possibly the largest ever constructed … and they had to build it {twice,}} once in England and again in Italy. Filming any outdoor scenes at all in England’s clammy climate was a big mistake. Liz Taylor came down with ... Read more »
Cleopatra
We decided to see this Claudette Colbert, C.B. De Mille epic before the Liz Taylor, Rex Harrison, Richard Burton one. It was filmed just as the horrible Hays Code was being introduced, and so it got away with scenes racier than anything which would be seen onscreen until well into the 1960s. Some of Colbert’s costumes are very sheer, and clearly show the outline of nipples. Gasp! ... Read more »
The Magnificent Seven
There are some excellent “Making of” DVD extras here. I watched them all, and finally someone (the director, Antoine Fuqua) mentioned Seven Samurai (七人の侍 Shichinin no Samurai), Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, without which this thing would never have been made. To give him credit, Fuqua listed it as the film that made him want to make ... Read more »
Sully
I am deeply conflicted about this movie. Tom Hanks is very good, as usual, as the hero of the Miracle on the Hudson. And the depictions of the crisis and how he and his copilot and cabin crew dealt with it are riveting, frightening, even though we all know how it all came out. And I understand that a screenplay has to have some conflict in it, it is almost impossible to make a movie that ... Read more »
Frankie and Johnny
Al Pacino is a recent parolee and Michelle Pfeiffer is an emotionally repressed waitress in a Manhattan diner. The original play by Terrence McNally was called Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. You want to know how much they changed the movie version from the original? Try this: In the Off-Broadway production the parts were played by F. Murray Abraham and ... Read more »
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
I am a huge fan of the thirteen books, whose actual author is Daniel Handler. The movie was not awful, but really could not convey a tenth of the verbal magic in the text. But now we have this Netflix original, and we binge-streamed it in two nights, and it’s wonderful! Handler is a producer, and wrote several of the scripts, so I ... Read more »
The BFG
I’m sorry, this is ridiculous, but I’m afraid there’s just no way I will ever be able to look at the titles of this film and not see it as The Big Fucking Giant. I know it’s The Big Friendly Giant … but somehow I like my title better. I guess I just have a nasty mind, because when I see the initials BFF I never think Best Friend ... Read more »
Pete’s Dragon
Disney seems determined to subject many if not most of its classic animated features to live-action remakes. Offhand I would not have recommended this, but I have to say that so far, on the strength of two movies (this one and The Jungle Book), they have done a damn good job of it. Soon the new Beauty and the Beast will be out, and we ... Read more »