Chapter Two

Neil Simon got his start with lightweight stage plays, then gradually moved into more serious fare, though there were always those trademark Simon one-liners and other sparkling dialogue. The stories were often autobiographical to one degree or another. This one is frankly taken from his own life, and segues from his usual sharp comedy in the first act into much more emotional fare before ... Read more »

Charade

Treat yourself. Ignore that abomination of a remake, The Truth About Charlie, and find this one on the classics shelf. Maybe the best comedy-thriller ever made.

Somebody once described this movie as “The best film Alfred Hitchcock never made.” You can easily see why. It’s a terrific blend of old screwball comedy with periods of high tension. It was ... Read more »

The Charge of the Light Brigade

(La Charge de la Brigade Claire …) wait a minute. This isn’t a French film … I don’t speak French … Ah, yes, it’s an English film, in English, about a war against Russia in the Crimea to free the Turks, and the French are our allies …

The commander of the British forces, Lord Raglan (John Gielgud), is a senile old ... Read more »

Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man

I am very glad this documentary got made, but I wish it had been made with a bit more care. As it is, it sprawls all over the place and strays way off its titular subject. It could have been trimmed by twenty minutes and not have lost anything.

Beaumont was one of the masters of the short story in the ‘50s, along with Robert Sheckley and Frederick Brown and several others. I grew ... Read more »

Charley Varrick

Every once in a great while a movie comes along with which I can find no fault, This is one. Former barnstormer and current crop-duster Walter Matthau has resorted to bank robberies to stay afloat. He, his wife, and two men take on a small bank in the Southwest, and it goes horribly wrong when local cops just happen to stop by. There is a shoot-out and his wife, one of the others, and two ... Read more »

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

See, here’s the deal … Neither of us had seen Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so we decided to rent it and watch it before we saw this. Underwhelmed. The music was insipid, the SFX were primitive, even for the time. Hated the Oompa Loompahs. Wondered if the ending was the one Roald Dahl wrote. So I decided to read the book.

Maybe I’d have ... Read more »

Charlie Wilson’s War

It’s hard to believe this is a true story, but it is. It’s a tragicomedy, telling the story of how one hard-partying congressman from Nacogdoches, Texas, got religion when he saw the appalling situation of the refugees from the Russia-Afghanistan war, and decided they needed help fighting off the Soviet monsters. (And monsters they were, too. It’s well-documented. They ruled the skies, and ... Read more »

Charlotte’s Web

I think I ought to start off here with phobias. There are a lot of people who simply could not watch this film. Most of the farm animals are real, with only their mouths altered to look like they are speaking. But Templeton the rat and Charlotte herself are animated and very real. My mother could not possibly endure the rat. She can’t stand to look at rats, mice, gerbils, hamsters … ... Read more »

Chasing Ice

Something of a hybrid movie here, part biography and part nature documentary. James Balog is a photographer who started something called the Extreme Ice Survey, which involved setting up time-lapse cameras in Greenland, Iceland, and Alaska to show the alarming retreat of the glaciers. His idea is that such dramatic footage would be a lot more effective in convincing the lay public that ... Read more »