Movie Reviews
Bullitt
I happened to see this at the absolute perfect spot: A drive-in theater down by the San Francisco Airport. It had four screens with a refreshment stand in the middle. It is no longer in operation, but I was amazed to find that its outline can still be seen on Google maps. If you find the airport, look between that and the Coyote Point Recreation Area. It’s right on the Bay, a brown square ... Read more »
Animal House
I happened to be living in Eugene, Oregon when this movie was shooting and when it opened. Not that I was aware of it at the time, though I wish I had been. It would have been fun to be an extra at the climactic parade, which was done in Cottage Grove, a few miles down I-5. But when we saw it, it was fun to identify the locations. Most of them were on the campus of the University of ... Read more »
A Hologram for the King
Tom Hanks is a salesman sent to Saudi Arabia to sell a holographic computer system to the people who are building a fantastic planned city in the desert, with an expected population of a million and a half. But when he gets there what he finds is a lot of sand, with roads sketched in, a big tent, and only two buildings, just one of which is finished and occupied. And the run-around begins. ... Read more »
Keanu
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele are one of the best sketch-comedy teams since the early days of SNL. I have not watched their show, but have seen many of their bits on YouTube. Both of them are half white and half black. Do you think that’s why they can function so well with both races? They have one bit where they are two slaves on the auction block, getting ... Read more »
Marooned
There’s a good reason why Star Wars is more popular than movies about real space travel. Most of the real stuff is incredibly boring. I’m sorry, I’m as big a space buff as anyone on the planet, but I can’t watched four hours of an ISS astronaut in a spacesuit tightening bolts on a thingamabob, nor even astronauts floating around inside. Ground control is even ... Read more »
Cry Terror!
A criminal mastermind (Rod Steiger) cons an electronics expert (James Mason) into making some bombs that are small, but capable of bringing down an airplane. Then he and his gang of pretty stupid people (Angie Dickenson, Jack Klugman, and Neville Brand) kidnap him and his wife (Inger Stevens) and young daughter, forcing the wife to collect the $500,000 payoff from an airline whose planes ... Read more »
The Great Escape
I vividly remember seeing this when it was new. I was in the theater with three friends: Calvin, Phil, and Jan. (Damn, two of them are dead now!) And they had us at the first seconds with the opening bars of one of the best music scores of all time, by the great Elmer Bernstein. Dead now too, alas. Go to Wikipedia and take a look at the sheer number of scores he wrote!
And it just ... Read more »
Hopscotch
(Second review) Walter Matthau was one of my favorite actors, both in his eight movies with his friend Jack Lemmon (they are buried side by side in the Westwood Cemetery) and the many others he made. The list of terrific movies he made is a long one, including things like Charade, The Fortune Cookie (won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), A ... Read more »
Goodfellas
Martin Scorsese has made three films about those scum-of-the-Earth people known as the Mafia. This was the first, and I think still the best, though both Casino and The Departed were excellent. And though I dearly loved the Godfather saga, I’m sure this is a lot closer to what a life in the Mob is all about. ... Read more »
Eye in the Sky
There is a thought experiment in ethics studies known as the “Trolley Problem.” It is simply this: There is a runaway trolley, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Directly ahead of the trolley five people are tied to the tracks and will be killed when the trolley gets there. But there is a siding. If you throw the switch, the trolley will be diverted … but there is one man tied to ... Read more »