Movie Reviews
The Music Lovers
Ken Russell made five of these musical sort-of “biographies” of composers: this one, and Mahler, Liszt, Delius, and Elgar. This is the only one I’ve seen. They are hard to find, and/or expensive to buy. He freely admitted that they often had little to do with the men’s actual lives, they were more “meditations” on their music, with themes added that appealed to Russell. With this one, with ... Read more »
Elevator to the Gallows
(aka Frantic, aka Lift to the Scaffold, UK) Hitchcock was not the only one working in the 1950s who could make a tense thriller. In France, Louis Malle made this little gem. Maurice Ronet is having an affair with Jeanne Moreau, wife of his rich industrialist boss. They decide to kill him, and he comes up with a foolproof plan. When ... Read more »
Big Game
It’s the most expensive movie ever made in Finland, and in an odd way, sort of reassuring to me. I mean, we all know that just tons of really crappy movies are churned out in places like Japan, India, Hong Kong, but if you’re like me you subconsciously think of Europe as somehow more serious, sober, literary. Not true. When they want to, Europeans can make movies just as stupid as your ... Read more »
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Based on a popular novel of a few years before. Cary Grant and Myrna Loy and their two young daughters are feeling the pinch in their two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, and decide to buy a house in Connecticut. Melvyn Douglas as their friend and lawyer tries to dissuade them from being in too much of a hurry, but they are too gaga with excitement to be very cautious. So they end up with a ... Read more »
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Third Season)
More fabulous clothes and hats. More fabulous old cars, lovely Melbourne mansions. More ruby-red lipstick and the good old gold-plated .38 with ivory grips and the stiletto in the garter. In short, more of all the things that made the original two seasons of Phryne Fisher stories so entertaining. Whodunit is really beside the point in a show like this. The plots are as unlikely as any ... Read more »
Picture Day
Once more I’m struck by how happy Tatiana Maslany must have been to finally graduate from juvenile roles into playing grown-ups. Here she is Claire, a spunky and brash girl who is just beginning what she calls the 13th grade, having to repeat a year. (Maslany was twenty-seven!) At the rate she is going she might as well prepare for the 14th, if she intends to graduate at all, because she ... Read more »
In & Out
Simply the finest fast food burger chain in the West. (Maybe the East, too. I wasn’t impressed with White Castle sliders.) Since 1948 they have not varied their menu: burgers, fries, soft drinks, coffee, and shakes. You might notice that this is pretty much exactly what McDonalds served back in 1955. You don’t go to In-N-Out for a breakfast sandwich, a chicken sandwich, raspberry ... Read more »
The Martian
Imagine you are stranded on Mars, fifty million miles from the nearest Starbucks. You can recycle water and oxygen (if the equipment doesn’t fail) but you only have enough food for maybe 200 days, and the earliest possible rescue (if they even figure out you’re alive) would be in something like 500 days. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the only music you have to listen to is ‘80s ... Read more »
Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice
No, we haven’t fallen into a space-time warp into the Bizarro world. This movie won’t be out until March of 2016, and I am writing this on October 5, 2015. What I’ve seen is the three-minute trailer, before settling down to watch a real science fiction film, that is, The Martian. Do you think it’s unfair to review a film on the basis of a trailer? Well, that’s up ... Read more »
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
… and the Sweaty, and the Dusty.
I guess you had to be there. I recognize that this movie was ground-breaking. And, as often happens, most people didn’t realize it at the time. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Bonnie and Clyde, it was not well-reviewed upon release. It built its following over the years, ... Read more »