All the Money in the World

Here we have the story of how John Paul Getty, at the time the richest man in the world, refused to pay a $17,000,000 ransom to get his grandson, John Paul Getty III, released from a gang of Mafia kidnappers, and got an ear and a threat to send the rest of the boy back piece by piece. But the film will always be known for the very strange thing that happened when it was already in the can ... Read more »

All the President’s Men

It’s hard to think of an unlikelier book to make a movie from. I mean, the book is exciting, fascinating, and tells a very important story, but let’s face it, watching two guys banging away at their typewriters or buttonholing worried members of the Nixon Administration is not the stuff thrillers are made of.

So Robert Redford brought in William Goldman, one of the greatest ... Read more »

All the Pretty Horses

Cormac McCarthy is a conundrum to me. I really admired his novel No Country For Old Men, and the movie the Coen Brothers made from it. I really disliked The Road, book and movie, even if it was on Oprah’s reading list. And I totally hated, hated, hated, hated his book Read more »

All the Way

I think they might as well start engraving Bryan Cranston’s name on the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Movie. This is a stunning, towering, almost uncanny performance. If I closed my eyes I could imagine it was actually LBJ speaking.

(BTW: I once shook the hand of Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson at the Mid-County Airport in Nederland, Texas, when he came through on a ... Read more »

All This and Heaven Too

They don’t come much weepier than this one. Bette Davis, corseted to within an inch of her life, is hired as governess by the Duc de Something, played with smoldering eyes by Charles Boyer. (Who was also corseted to within an inch of his receding hairline. In real life the famous French lover was paunchy, short, and balding!) Bette is hired as governess to the Duc’s children, four of the ... Read more »

Alladin

Disney’s live action remakes have mostly been pretty good, defying my expectations. (Let’s just skip right over The Lion King.) This is one of the best. They’ve amped up the role of Jasmine, so she is a lot less passive. The production is eye-popping, and the music is great. Will Smith will never be able to replace Robin Williams as the Genie, but he does a ... Read more »

Altered States

The script is by “Sidney Aaron,” from the only novel Paddy Chayefsky ever wrote. But it’s all really Paddy, whose real given name was Sidney Aaron Chayefsky. He quickly got into a dispute with madman director Ken Russell, feeling that Russell was having the actors speak his words too quickly. Maybe he was concerned that a lot of the words, having seldom been used in a motion picture, would ... Read more »

Alvin and the Chipmunks

(December 14, 2007, if we’re all really, really, really bad) I know it’s not strictly kosher to review a movie you haven’t seen, that hasn’t even been released yet, and that you would prefer to have all 32 teeth extracted without novocaine than see. But while suffering through 12 trailers for upcoming bad “family” movies while waiting for ... Read more »

Always

I just looked through Steven Spielberg’s filmography and it is as I suspected: He has never directed anything that could qualify as a romance. He is an action-adventure sort of guy. And that’s fine; he’s good at it. This is as close as he’s ever come to a romance, and it’s a fairly off-beat one, with plenty of action.

It’s a remake of A Guy Named Joe, a ... Read more »

Amadeus

Winning an Academy Award usually helps an actor get better parts, have a shot at real stardom … but not always. Remember Louise Fletcher? There’s a good chance you don’t, though she won an Oscar (and just about every other award) for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s not that she hasn’t had a career, she has worked regularly ever since. But she is not a ... Read more »