Movie Reviews
Titles starting with W
We Bought a Zoo
In 2006 the Benjamin Mee family bought the Dartmoor Zoological Park in Devon, England for about a million pounds. When they had it back on its feet (or hooves, or paws), Mee wrote a memoir about it and sold the film rights. The producers decided to move the story to California, the first of a series of mistakes that turned what might have been a real delight into a pretty routine and ... Read more »
We Don’t Live Here Anymore
Two best friends are screwing each other’s wives. It was hard for me to figure which of these four people I disliked the most. I can’t find anything good to say about any of them, nor the story.
We Don’t Live Here Anymore
(Second Review) I don’t think I’m ever going to be a big fan of movies about adultery. I just find it hard to find sympathy for people who go down that route. This is the story of two couples, best friends, who are torn apart when one man has an affair with the other man’s wife. Then the other two start having sex. The writing is excellent. So is the acting by Naomi Watts, who I love, Mark ... Read more »
We Need to Talk About Kevin
To quote Roger Ebert (not about this film), I hated, hated, hated this movie. Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, how bad could it be? Well, the acting is fine, as I expected, but everything else about it rubbed me raw.
Tilda is a rather awkward, nervous, tentative woman who bears a child who, right out of the womb, reveals himself to be the devil’s seed. He never stops screaming when ... Read more »
We Own the Night
Well-written, well-acted, well-photographed (minimal use of shaky-cam, hurray!) … and ultimately just a bit disappointing. I don’t know who to blame it on, except to say that it’s territory that I guess I’ve grown a little tired of. New York City, 1988, and the motto of the NYPD was “We Own the Night.” I don’t know exactly what that little bit of bravado was meant to translate as ... Read more »
The Weather Underground
One of the most depressing documentaries I’ve ever seen. Did I ever think these people were worthy of following? Well, not actually, I was never a radical activist, but I believe I mostly enjoyed it when these wackos lashed out at the government … and just about everything else in sight. The Weathermen hijacked the Students for a Democratic Society in 1970, and proceeded down a ... Read more »
A Wedding
This is another of Robert Altman’s trademark movies with large casts and no real plot, as such. By that I mean, there is a terrific amount of incident, but it doesn’t really move forward toward a narrative goal. This is fine with me, but I know it’s not for everybody. I’d rate this one as not as good as Nashville or Gosford Park, but ... Read more »
Wedding Crashers
This one might as well have had Wait For The Video! written right into the trailers. I was skeptical going in, and it won me over within five minutes. Early on, wondering why I was smiling so much, I realized that it had jumped right in and got my feet thumping and my eyes delighted. The music is very good.
These guys crash weddings, for the partying and free food and the ... Read more »
Week-end at the Waldorf
Sort of a cut-rate Grand Hotel. In fact, at one point one of the characters compares her situation to a story line from that movie. Robert Benchley narrates a description of the workings of a big luxury hotel, and we follow several stories that don’t necessarily interlock. In fact, at least two of the stories start off and then are just abandoned. The two main ... Read more »
Welcome
If we can believe this movie—and I think we can—France is very harsh with illegal aliens. You can go to jail just for feeding or housing them. This is the story of Bilal, a 17-year-old Kurdish boy from Iraq. He has walked 4000 kilometers to get to Calais, in the hope getting to England to be with his girlfriend in London, who is about to be married off to someone she doesn’t love. When all ... Read more »