Movie Reviews
Titles starting with S
A Separation
Sometimes, with the very best movies, there’s not a lot I can say other than rather broad generalities. It’s a courtroom drama, but it’s not like any courtroom you’ve ever seen, taking place mostly in drab bureaucratic offices and hallways. Not a bewigged barrister nor flamboyant defense attorney to be seen. The plot is pretty easy to summarize. It concerns a middle-class couple who are at ... Read more »
September
Inspired this time by Chekhov, Woody Allen here gives us a claustrophobic story of six people at a beach house that could have been, and maybe should have been, done on the stage. Mia Farrow is the daughter of an old has been warhorse actress (Elaine Stritch, who is about as abrasive a character as I’ve ever seen; she brays every line, and I hated her intensely). When she was fourteen she ... Read more »
September 11
Shortly after 9/11/01 someone named Alain Brigand had the idea to hire 11 directors from different countries to make 11-minute movies in reaction to the atrocity. They would have complete artistic control. The result came out on 9/11/02, and is now available on DVD. Most of them are quite good, and one is devastating.
Naturally, there have been objections that some are ... Read more »
Séraphine
Based on a true story. In 1914 Séraphine Louis is a woman of 50 who spends her days on her knees scrubbing floors and her nights making amazing paintings by candlelight. She mixes her own paints from things she finds around her, and hasn’t the money for canvas. This is about as humble as you can get. She is noticed by Wilhelm Uhde, a visiting art critic who was an early supporter of ... Read more »
Serenity
No fewer than 4 people wrote to me via the website and recommended this movie. Some were wildly enthusiastic. The viewers at the IMDb gave it a very high 8.0. Metacritic gave it a 74 and their users rated it a stratospheric 9.2. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 80%. Wow.
I didn’t like it. Not even enough to finish it. We watched half an hour, paused the DVD, and asked each other if we ... Read more »
A Serious Man
The Coen Brothers’ film Fargo begins “Based on a true story.” It’s not. This one begins with a vignette that has absolutely nothing to do with the main story. The Coens like to mess with your head like that, and they make films like no one else, and 90% of the time I love them. This is one of those times. It takes place in about 1967, a time I recall fondly, and ... Read more »
The Sessions
There’s a lot to say about this movie, but first I have to comment on the Oscar insanity. Helen Hunt got a nomination … for Best Supporting Actress! Now, I’ve complained about this before, about large roles showing up in the supporting category, but this was way beyond ridiculous. Just the worst ever. If this was not a leading role, I ... Read more »
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Here’s something I didn’t know. From wiki: “The script (by Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley) is based on the short story “The Sobbin’ Women”, by Stephen Vincent Benét, which was based in turn on the Ancient Roman legend of The Rape of the Sabine Women.” The word “rape” was a bit different back then, and really referred to what we would ... Read more »
Seven Chances
The IMDb says this was Buster Keaton’s least favorite of his feature movies. I suspect it was because it was based on a play that his producer, Joseph M. Schenck, had bought, and Buster wasn’t impressed. The idea was that he had to get married, to somebody, anybody, by 7 that evening to inherit 7 million dollars. This probably made for an okay farce on the stage, ... Read more »
Seven Days in May
This and Fail-Safe, released the same year, are the classic Cold War dramas (Dr. Strangelove being the best—and only—Cold War comedy). This one is the better of the two, I think, though it doesn’t really involve the threat of nuclear annihilation. The idea of a military takeover of ... Read more »