Movie Reviews
Titles starting with 0-9
(500) Days of Summer
Summer is the girl he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life with. But the narrator tells us it won’t turn out that way, right up front. This a smart romantic comedy, cleverly written and presented by hopping back and forth through the 500 days of a relationship. There are many good things here, but the best was what I think of as a “Read more »
50/50
Hey, let’s make a comedy about a young man dying of cancer! Doesn’t that sound like a great idea? Well, of course, it doesn’t, and I was dubious, but I have to say they mostly pulled it off. It’s probably because the writer went through a similar experience himself, and knows what he’s talking about. The scenes ring true, showing the way people react, which ... Read more »
56-Up
56-Up (2012) The amazing experiment started in 1964 with the TV show Seven-Up! is now almost half a century old. For the briefest of re-caps: Fourteen children were chosen, from across the social spectrum, with the intention of revisiting them seven years later to see how they had changed, and what their prospects were in class-ridden British society. It was a ... Read more »
6ixty-nin9
(Ruang rak noi nid mahasan) (Thai, 1999) I loved this little film! Every once in a while you discover a gem that no one has heard of, and this is one. It is a crazy mixture of Hitchcock, the Coen Brothers, the Read more »
7 Faces of Dr. Lao
This is loosely based on The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney, which itself loosely resembles a novel. I read the book in high school, and was fascinated and baffled by it, as I think a great many other people were. It’s a series of episodes around the mysterious Dr Lao and his menagerie of mythical animals ... Read more »
700 Sundays
Billy Crystal adapted his biographical book into a one-man show in 2004. This year, it was revived, and HBO taped a performance. The show covers the fifteen years, around 700 Sundays, that he had with his dad before he died. And what a fifteen years it was! Did you know that Billy was taken to see his first movie by Billie Holiday? (It was Shane.) Or that both ... Read more »
75th Annual Academy Awards Short Films
Every year if you watch the Oscars, as we do religiously, there comes a time when they give out the awards for short films, and you see a five-second flash of movies which, unless you live in Los Angeles, I can practically guarantee that you have never seen, as they have played in maybe three theaters in the whole world. The winners are some of the most grateful of the evening: this is ... Read more »
84 Charing Cross Road
Here is a movie for book lovers. If slow pace bothers you, stay away, because there is little action. The pleasures here—and for me and Lee, they are considerable—are in the acting, the writing, and the restraint. It is based on a real story that was told in a book and a play. Anne Bancroft is a rather eccentric woman living in New ... Read more »
9
A major disappointment. The trailers looked fascinating—and in fact, visually, the movie is wonderful. But that is far from enough these days. Ten years ago I would have been stunned by the CGI animation. Five years ago I might have been impressed. Today, I yawn. I have seen many movies that have inspired video games, and quite a few that were based on video ... Read more »
99 Homes
Wouldn’t it be swell if all the people the sheriff’s office has to evict were deadbeat scumbags who never intended to make house payments, or were cooking meth in the garage? People who you would be happy to see their miserable possessions—favorite bong, extra T-shirt, motorcycle parts, filthy mattress—stacked at the curb. Unfortunately, getting behind on your payments happens to decent ... Read more »