The Return

A father returns to his two young sons after a 12-year absence. He takes them on a fishing trip, but he’s actually up to something else. We don’t know what it is, and we never find out, because there is a rather stunning surprise. Lots of question are unanswered in this moody, dark film, and I wish I knew more than I know, but I liked it. This is the first movie for director Andrei ... Read more »

The Return of the Pink Panther

Starts off well with a clever and sometimes dazzling animated opening. Moves nicely into a heist reminiscent of Topkapi. Then gets down to real business with the arrival of Inspector (now demoted to foot patrolman) Clouseau, who manages to completely miss a bank robbery going on behind him as he debates with a blind man playing the accordion as to whether he ... Read more »

Return to Lonesome Dove

We had to look at this one, too, though it is not part of McMurtry’s plan. In fact, he and his co-writer, Diana Ossana, were kind of pissed about the whole thing. Apparently he didn’t nail down the rights as firmly as he should have. This series veers off from McMurtry’s version of the sequel in Streets of Laredo. It has some of the virtues of Read more »

Revanche

It means “revenge.” A small-time hood plans a bank robbery with his Ukrainian prostitute girlfriend. “Nothing can go wrong,” he says. Yeah, right. A cop comes across her sitting in the getaway car, has no idea what’s coming down, but there he is when the idiot comes flying out of the bank. The robber puts the cop down on the ground and gets in the car, drives away. The cop gets up, fires a ... Read more »

The Revenant

Revenant [noun] rev·e·nant \ˈre-və-ˌnäⁿ, -nənt\ 1. Someone who returns from a long absence. 2. A person or thing reborn. 3. A supernatural being that returns from the dead; a zombie or ghost.

Hugh Glass could certainly qualify as a revenant. In 1823 he was terribly mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions. A few months later he stumbled into ... Read more »

Revolutionary Road

The 1950s. Everybody smoked, everywhere, except maybe in elevators. Everybody drank too much. Men wore hats, and women wore high heels and bras that reminded you of ICBM nose cones. It was the era of conformity, of hordes of men in gray flannel suits, of Levittown, the ad biz, and the pointless rat race, the soul-killing pursuit of the dollar and the corner office. It was an era of ... Read more »

Rhapsody in Blue

Ask me who the best composers of the 20th Century were, and I’d say this: Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bernstein, Copland, and Gershwin. Ask me who the best one was, and I’m sorry Maurice, Igor, Sergei, Lennie, and Aaron, but it’s George all the way.

This movie was a lot better than I thought it would be. Biopics are usually a mess, and wildly ... Read more »

Richard III

I don’t know how many Shakespeare plays Laurence Olivier appeared in on the boards, but on film he has played all the biggies: Lear, Shylock, Othello, Hamlet. I’ve seen them all, and to me this is his crowning achievement. He had me utterly spellbound from his first opening soliloquy, and kept me right through to the end. Not only is it superbly acted, with supporting players like Ralph ... Read more »

Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip

Whenever I see Richard Pryor, the first thing I think of is Lenny Bruce. Oh, man, the persecution, the agony that man went through for routines that were so tame, so bland by today’s standards! With Pryor, every other sentence contains the word motherfucker, which Lenny didn’t even try to use. Well, it’s a sad world, but in some ways it gets better with time. His ... Read more »