Movie Reviews
Titles starting with H
Hemingway and Gellhorn
First, I in no way take any of this as being historical gospel. I assume that changes were made, as they always are. The incidents showing what a bastard “Papa” could be might have been made up. Having said that, I must say that I believe Ernest Hemingway was the most over-rated writer, and possibly the most over-rated man of the twentieth century. Hardly anyone these days disputes that he ... Read more »
Henning Mankell’s Wallander
Henning Mankell wrote a dozen novels featuring Swedish detective Kurt Wallander between 1991 and 2009, and he sure did get a lot of mileage out of them. There was a series of Swedish TV movies from 1994 to 2007, starring Rolf Lassgard. Then there was this Swedish TV series from 2005 to 2013, starring Krister Henriksson. As if that weren’t enough, there is another production, from the BBC, ... Read more »
Her
One of the odder love stories you will ever see. From the degree of building in Los Angeles, and the fact that we see few cars and a lot of trains, I’m guessing it is meant to be around thirty or forty years from now, but the writer-director, Spike Jonze, wisely never specifies a date. It is a world not hugely different from our own, which I think was also a wise choice. It is bright and ... Read more »
Hercules
This is the 43rd movie in our Disney Animated Feature Marathon, and the first one I hadn’t seen yet. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I had been under the impression that it was an attempt by the folks at Disney to be hip, and in my experience Disney doesn’t do hip very well. Turns out I was wrong. Four years before Shrek worked hundreds of contemporary ... Read more »
Here Comes the Boom
Another movie I never would have watched if I hadn’t been imprisoned in a hospital bed, recovering from knee surgery. I don’t know much about the star, Kevin James, except that it looks like every movie he’s ever starred in has been reviewed horribly. This is about an older man who was a college wrestler. The school where he teaches is about to eliminate the popular music program. They ... Read more »
Hereafter
It could have been a routine spook story, but it’s directed by Clint Eastwood, and you know he wouldn’t waste his time with any Amityville Horror bullshit. Matt Damon is a man who seems to be able to communicate with the dead. Not in any table-knocking dim room with sheets hung over helium balloons, but just by taking someone’s hand. And he hates it. He doesn’t ... Read more »
Hero
It is not possible to debate the incredible beauty of this film. It is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen. Scene follows scene of awesome beauty, color, movement, incredible landscapes. It is not possible to debate the grandeur of it, either. There are scenes with many thousands, and not all of it is a CGI crowd, though some of it is certainly augmented that way. It is not ... Read more »
Heroes
Over the last five years or so I have managed to get my regular television viewing down to approximately 0 (zero) hours per week. By that I mean sitting down on the couch on Sunday at 9, for instance, to see a regularly scheduled show. (Lee has the TV on all day to a news station, or sometimes a movie, but I don’t watch or listen … and actually, neither does she. ... Read more »
Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Here’s a book that could easily qualify as the Great American Novel. It’s certainly on my Top Ten, and it has moved and influenced a great many others since its publication over 50 years ago. This is a movie about that. Novelists, mostly from the south, tell us of their thoughts about and reactions to this novel, along with a few celebrities like Oprah and Tom Brokaw, and read passages ... Read more »
Hidalgo
… is a horse. He is way more intelligent than any real horse, also much tougher and stronger. Yet, if you don’t worry too much about that, it’s not a bad movie. But I am, frankly, surprised it got made. It is a supremely old-fashioned adventure movie: a cowboy and his mustang racing across the Arabian desert (the same Empty Quarter that almost killed Peter O’Toole; we even have Omar ... Read more »