Dead Poets Society

We have seen several films lately that I would call “recent classics.” That is, twenty or thirty years old. Several of them have been minor disappointments, not as good as I remember them. Which is not to say they are bad, just that they don’t quite pack the punch that they used to. Among these are The Graduate and Read more »

Deadfall

I’ve been trying to recall why I ordered this movie, what attracted me to it, and other than the fact that Michael Caine is in it, I just can’t remember. And now I regret it. He and the director, Bryan Forbes, had worked together two years before in The Wrong Box, a neglected gem. Forbes did some quite good movies in the ‘60s, then his career sort of petered out. ... Read more »

Death at a Funeral

Frank Oz (the voice of Miss Piggy) in his other life as a director, has given us Little Shop of Horrors and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, two of my all-time favorites, and HouseSitter, another good one, though not quite on a par with the first two. This movie is more on that scale. We laughed a lot. No point ... Read more »

Death Becomes Her

This is not nearly as bad as I remembered it. Searching for a reason why that should be, I decided it was probably because the end was not nearly as good as the beginning. In fact, after about the halfway point Robert Zemeckis and David Koepp, the director and writer, couldn’t figure out where to take the story, and so it degenerated into a lot of rather elaborate and unfunny action ... Read more »

Death Defying Acts

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Saoirse Ronan are mother-and-daughter con women who set out to hoodwink Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) out of the $10,000 prize he has offered to anyone who can tell him the last words his beloved mother spoke to him. Not easy, since Harry has been exposing fraudulent psychics for a long time and knows all the tricks. Then, of course, love rears its head. This movie ... Read more »

Death in Paradise

Ben Miller, of the sketch comedy team of Armstrong and Miller, is D.I. Richard Poole, a painfully straight-laced cop who is sent to the tiny island of Saint Marie in the Caribbean to solve the murder of another cop. He does, and then finds himself re-assigned to this “tropical paradise,” which he hates. The heat, the lack of resources, and worst of all, the impossibility of getting a ... Read more »

Death of a President

This mockumentary is rated PPP, for Pure Progressive Pornography.

I like porn. Any guy who tells you he doesn’t is either a eunuch or a liar. In porn, all girls are young and beautiful, perpetually horny, and willing to jump into bed in a split second and do a threesome and beg you to give it to them in the ass. What’s not to like? The director here, Gabriel Range, has ... Read more »

Death Proof

Second feature at the drive in with {[Planet Terror}}. Whatever else you say, Tarantino is one of the best ever at writing dialogue. His ear is unerring for the rhythms of speech, and for the startling reversal, and the new take on the old situation. This film basically breaks down into 4 parts: A long scene in a bar with several women and a lot of conversation; a short violent scene to ... Read more »

Death Wish

I have to admit it. A guilty pleasure. I believe in the rule of law … but I also recognize that sometimes the law isn’t enough. Which is not to say I precisely endorse vigilante actions. But I have to admit something else. If anyone in my family was subjected to the horrors that descended on Paul Kersey’s family, and I knew who the culprits were … and the law ... Read more »

Deathtrap

Ira Levin wanted to emulate the genius of Anthony Shaffer’s masterpiece Sleuth. He didn’t (I doubt anyone ever will) but he came close. This play ran on Broadway for 1,793 performances, a record for a comedy-drama. The film version stars Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, and Dyan Cannon. The plot is sufficiently twisty to satisfy the most discerning mystery buff, ... Read more »