Scorcese makes a Tarrentino movie. Big deal.
I wanted to like “24″. It has the potential to be a great story medium, incessant, pressure driving real time narrative. But it is shite. I was going to watch it on the Tivo, but I got about 10 minutes in and had to hit delete. The President, a woman, started screeching subtext. There was [...]
I’ve never been a Tom Cruise fan. I don’t think he is a good actor. I don’t like the parts of him that I can see. Don’t get me wrong. Acting well is a harrowing proposition. Living the part, letting go of every thing you are, is scary and most people can’t do it. I [...]
I’m watching this movie on DVD and it is damned good. Paul Haggis directs minimally. He uses deep focus when it works. His shot selection is set up, set up, 2 shot, 2 shot, 1 shot, 1 shot. Tommy Lee Jones wears his pain like it is being painted on him, not like a set [...]
Good. Good in a knuckle-dragging sort of way. Fun. The second installment of this movie series is good fun. Jeffrey Tambor delivers his trademark sniveller, this time in a government suit, it still works. Selma Blair doesn’t need fire to look pissed off. Or hot. But the talking manifold cracked me up. Good stuff.
I finally saw “Birdcage”, Mike Nichol’s remake of “La Cage aux Folles”. That is a bad movie. Okay, maybe the movie isn’t bad, but the script was. It was set bound (a problem faced by many play transcriptions) and told more than showed (another problem typical of movies drawn from plays). There was bad casting, [...]
The Dirty Harry movies have been repackaged as a boxed set. Mark Harris in Slate recapitulates the reaction to the movies. His is a traditional narrative about the movies. I think the traditional narrative about the movies ignores the context in which they were made. Many of the films made in the years after World [...]
I saw a documentary tonight, “The Other Side of the Mirror”. It is about Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival. It covered the years 1963-65. For those keeping score at home, 1965 was the year that Dylan went ‘electric’. The result of that transition was less than the sum of its parts. I don’t [...]
What do you do on Christmas day when the younglings are with the other parent and you have only one good arm? Join the rest of the cripples at the movies. “Dan In Real Life” is the story of a widower of four years who meets the ideal woman while on a holiday (Thanksgiving?) retreat [...]
What do you do when you are forced into inactivity by shoulder surgery? Watch movies. I did. A stack of them. “Man of the Year” is a collaboration by Barry Levinson and Robin Williams about a Jon Stewart like character who decides to run for President as an independent. This movie required more suspension of [...]