Movie Reviews
Titles starting with N
No Highway in the Sky
The science in this movie is way beyond ludicrous. Jimmy Stewart is a standard absent-minded, socially-inept scientist who has calculated that the tail of a new airliner will fall off after 1440 hours of service. Not 1439, not 1441. 1440. (Well, I’m exaggerating a little, but he insists it is “exact” science.) The reason? Some mumbo-jumbo about nuclear fission ... Read more »
No Way Out
A straight romance that turns into a thriller, and plays fair … except possibly at the end. It’s a very Hitchcockian story, the basic plot of the innocent man, not wrongly accused in this instance, but innocent, and hunted. I hesitate to tell too much, as there is a startling change of direction at the end of the first act, and a big surprise at the end. I didn’t like the end, but I can’t ... Read more »
Noah
Did you know that Noah had helpers when building the Ark, in the form of animated rock monsters bigger than elephants? Did you know that thousands of angry people gathered near the big boat and fought to get in? Did you know that, after the animals were all loaded, two by two, they were all put to sleep for forty days and forty nights, so Noah and his family wouldn’t have to feed them and ... Read more »
Nobody Knows
This is sort of like Home Alone, as re-written by Ingmar Bergman. Or maybe Lord of the Flies, except it takes place in a nice little suburb of Tokyo, and nobody notices the children’s descent into primitive life. Or how about “Kid Nation,” a show which is currently stirring up controversy before it’s even been shown (and which I will ... Read more »
Nocturnal Animals
Dear Readers: During the last several months I have been so occupied with finishing my latest novel that I have had no time to write these reviews. (I love doing them, because they are easy to write, and writing a novel is hard.) But I have kept a list of all the movies we have seen in that time, figuring on going back and catching up. Which I am doing now. And ... Read more »
Nói albínói
A small fishing town in Iceland in the winter is pretty close to my idea of the perfect hell. Being the town weirdo is just icing on the cake. In a bigger town Nói would probably join a gang. Here, he has to be a gang of his own, and he’s not very good at it. The movie gets off to a good start, then sort of sputters and dies. Then it just ends. A few laughs, but not much else.
Noises Off
Here is a stage play so damn good that not even this rather lackluster filming of it can ruin it. I’ve seen it three times, in Eugene, Portland, and Glendale, and each time nearly died laughing. The thing is, it is a stage stage play, wholly dependent on the conventions of the live theater. Making a film was probably a mistake, but I’m glad they did it, so there ... Read more »
Non-Stop
The plot is as unlikely as most of these airplane thrillers (exception, Flightplan with Jodie Foster, which I quite enjoyed), but Liam Neeson has turned into such an attractive action hero for older folks like me, that he managed to sell it, just as he did in Taken, and even in Taken 2. (I see there will be a ... Read more »
Nora’s Will
Jews are supposed to be put in the ground within twenty-four hours of their deaths, but there are exceptions. You can’t bury a Jew at the beginning of Passover, or on the Sabbath. Nora knows this, and has planned her death carefully so that she can’t be buried for five days. Jose, who divorced her twenty years ago but still lives in an apartment across the street, is hardly surprised to ... Read more »
Norbit
Eddie Murphy used to be a comic genius. What the hell happened? He’s still a big-money player in this town, with his voice work on the Shrek series and his Oscar nomination for Dreamgirls. But how do you explain The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, The Klumps, and this piece of ... Read more »