Hidden Figures

I am so conflicted about this movie. The reviews were uniformly good, it picked up a lot of Oscar nominations, and I quite enjoyed it. Then I read a little about the real story …

I don’t usually demand a really high degree of historical accuracy in a film. I will tolerate quite a bit of dramatic license. But it turns out that much, and I might even say ... Read more »

Hide and Seek

A movie that just flat leaves a bad taste in your mouth. About halfway through I knew they were going for an M. Night Shyamalan fake-out, and the suspect was obvious. Ho-hum, what a surprise twist! Dakota Fanning was incredibly good, and it’s too bad she was wasted in this. It is very hard to make a scary movie, and almost impossible to make one about a little girl being stalked by a ... Read more »

High Crimes

Ashley Judd, a defense attorney, finds out the man she has been married to for over a decade is an ex-marine wanted for mass murder in El Salvador. It is a pretty rude awakening, considering the first she hears of it is when they are arrested in a big take-down by FBI storm troopers. He claims he didn’t do it. She decides to defend him.

But she doesn’t know much about the court ... Read more »

High School Musical

I first heard of this when the buzz started building for the sequel, and I learned that it had been a monster hit on TV, sold a zillion DVDs, and spawned a best-selling album, a theatrical tour and an ice show, for chrissake! It has millions of devoted teenage fans. As a lover of musicals, I had to see what it was all about.

The bad news is … it’s not much. The music is ... Read more »

The High Sign

Buster Keaton two-reeler. It’s a great little film that is memorable chiefly for the amazing chase near the end, through a two-story, four-room set, where you can see all four rooms at once. There has never been a better movie acrobat than Buster. You wonder how he survived it all.

The Highwaymen

I really, really loved the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, but I didn’t believe a minute of it. It was pure fiction, from beginning to end. These were not nice people, there was no romance about them. This movie sets the record straight and shows them for the despicable scum thugs they were. America idolized them, and it’s hard for me to understand why. Desperate for ... Read more »

Hillbilly Elegy

The reviews were downright vicious. Some called it one of the worst movies of the year. Many others said it is the worst movie Ron Howard has ever made. The smackdowns were so bad that The Onion ran a story with the headline “Defensive Ron Howard: ‘You Try Making A Good Movie About Fucking Hillbillies.’” I sampled a few articles about it, and it seemed to me that ... Read more »

The Hills Have Eyes II

Cannibalistic mutant films are never high on my list of must-sees. I never saw the first one and never felt the loss. By the time Grindhouse ended we were so tired of this shit we didn’t even stay around for the opening credits.

Himalaya

The six comic geniuses of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (1969-1974) transformed television and then moved on to other careers, though they got back together to make three films: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), and Monty Python’s The Meaning ... Read more »

Hinterland

Yes, apparently Wales is a country … but in a strictly limited sense. It is part of the United Kingdom, like Scotland, but has no seat in the United Nations, nor embassies in other countries. It is represented in and governed by the British Parliament, and they sing “God Save the Queen.” Yet it has its own language, which is much more a living tongue than I had ... Read more »