In the Heat of the Night

There are movies that you remember where you were when you first saw them, and this is one. It was in a theater on Market Street in San Francisco, now long gone to urban development. The audience was pretty demonstrative, and they were solidly on the side of Mister Virgil Tibbs. There was cheering when Virgil revealed that he was a police detective, and not the ... Read more »

In the Land of Blood and Honey

Remember the Bosnian War? Waged in the country formerly known as Yugoslavia, which eventually broke into Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and probably several other Balkan republics I’m forgetting. Most of all there was Serbia. Although there were atrocities committed by all sides, Serbia was the unquestioned champion. At least 7,000 bodies in mass graves. Around 50,000 women interned ... Read more »

In the Loop

Here is a script that was nominated for an Oscar, and had no less than four writers, plus the director, which is usually a disaster. But this time it seems to have meant that they used the best stuff each of them wrote. I doubt that any group of humans have ever been as articulate and funny and wicked and literate and obscene as the people shown here … but in a better world people’s ... Read more »

In the Valley of Elah

I can be a very easy audience for a movie. If the acting is good, the script is interesting, and the situation provocative, I tend not to ask a lot of questions as I’m going along. The acting here is very good, especially Tommy Lee Jones, who was Oscar-nominated, and Charlize Theron, who I didn’t even recognize until I looked at the sleeve and saw her name. (We all know she can go ugly, as ... Read more »

In This World

How would you go from an Afghanistan refugee camp to London to begin a new life … with nothing but a few forged papers and a little bit of money your family has scrimped together? With great difficulty, that’s how. This is the story of a 16-year-old and his uncle who set out to do just that, and it is mostly real, though some scenes had to have been staged. Engrossing and ... Read more »

In Which We Serve

Noël Coward wrote the screenplay, co-directed (with David Lean), wrote the music, and probably ran around running the projectors for this film in theaters. It is one of the best movies about World War II. Co-starring is John Mills, and it marks the very first film appearance of Richard Attenborough. He plays a coward (no relation) who later redeems himself heroically.

It is the ... Read more »

Incendies

In an unnamed Middle Eastern country—based on Lebanon—a woman dies and in her will tells her son and daughter that they must find their father and brother. Which is a surprise to them, since they didn’t know they had a brother. They don’t know much about their childhood, in fact, and little about their mother’s life. The brother isn’t interested, but the daughter sets out on the path of ... Read more »

Inception

I’ve complained before about simple-minded and scientifically awful and just plain stupid science fiction films, which just happens to be about 95% of them, but sometimes a movie can be just too clever for its own good. This one concerns a sort of “Mission Impossible” team that is using a technology whereby one’s dreams can be invaded and manipulated such that someone can be tricked into ... Read more »

Incident at Loch Ness

Think This Is Spinal Tap meets The Blair Witch Project meets The Art of the Fart. Only you don’t understand it’s a joke at first, unless you’ve read about it. For the first half hour it all seems reasonable enough. The great Werner Herzog is planning to make a documentary, not about Nessie, but about the ... Read more »

Incident at Oglala

Michael Apted has a serious bee in his bonnet over the Leonard Peltier case. First he made Thunderheart, which wasn’t about the shootout on the reservation where two FBI agents were killed, but mentioned it, and explored the tensions between two tribal factions and the government, and now this, a documentary that explores the facts of the case. And does a damn good job of it. All the ... Read more »