Encounters at the End of the World (Second Review)

When the producers of this film asked Werner Herzog to make a film in Antarctica, he told them he wouldn’t make one more film about fluffy penguins. I don’t think anyone expected that he would, Werner is not that sort of film-maker. He has always been interested in extremes, in human behavior, in environment, in just about anything. So what he made is an excellent study of many things down ... Read more »

End of Watch

The first thing that has to be addressed is that there really are some movies that I’m glad I didn’t go see in the theater, that it was much better to have waited for the DVD. Usually it’s the other way. A huge spectacle looks better the wider it gets. A small drama works just as well on a wide screen or a 5-inch iPad (I guess; I don’t have a tablet and don’t plan to get one). But these ... Read more »

Ender’s Game

The book, written in 1985 by Orson Scott Card and updated in 1991, has been quite popular, and engendered a series of sequels and parallel stories. I have never read any of them, but I just found a copy of this one and will soon be reading it so that 1) I can see if I like it as well as so many other people did, and 2) to see if the movie does it justice.

As for the movie … the ... Read more »

The Endurance

An excellent documentary about the ill-fated voyage of Captain Shackleton to Antarctica, back when it was almost completely unexplored. It is almost impossible to believe, but after incredible hardships over the course of a year, including the loss of the Endurance, crushed by pack ice, he lost not one man. Best of all, he had a cameraman aboard, and much footage was taken until all the ... Read more »

Enduring Love

This movie has an absolutely stunning opening, and then sort of petered out. A couple are having a picnic in an open field. Suddenly a hot air balloon hits the ground. A man falls out, the balloon starts up again, the man grabs a rope. There is a boy inside. Other people appear, and five of them wrestle the balloon to safety … but then a wind rises, the boy accidentally turns on the ... Read more »

Enemy of the State

An above-average thriller of the innocent-man-on-the-run type. Will Smith unknowingly gets involved in the hunt for a videotape that shows the murder of a senator by henchmen of the CEO of a company that specializes in surveillance and does a lot of business with the NSA. He eventually hooks up with super-paranoid—and rightly so, we soon discover—Gene Hackman, who is the man who set up a ... Read more »

The Enforcer

Today this would be an episode of “Law & Order” or “CSI.” Not a particularly good one, either. It’s hard to swallow, at first, that these cops and DAs would be utterly baffled by words like “contract” and “hit.” I suppose all slang terms had to be new and mysterious sometime. And you have to keep reminding yourself how ... Read more »

The English Patient

In the days near the end of the Italian campaign in 1944, a Canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche) is caring for a dying man who has been burned beyond recognition. He claims he can’t even remember his own name. This story is told interspersed with flashbacks to just before the start of WWII. Ralph Fiennes is an archaeologist, cartographer, and major sourpuss in the Egyptian Sahara. But he ... Read more »

Enoch Arden

Enoch Arden (1911) This was included in the DVD extras for Move Over, Darling. I’m a little confused as to just what I saw. The movie was made in two parts because the studios back then didn’t think anyone would pay extra to see longer movies. This was listed as Part II, but it seemed like the complete story. A complete version exists at the Library of Congress. ... Read more »

Enola Holmes

I have enjoyed many of the seemingly endless variations on the classic character of Sherlock Holmes, from the British Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch, to the American Elementary, with Jonny Lee Miller, and Lucy Liu as Doctor Joan Watson, to films like The Seven Percent Solution and Mr. ... Read more »