Viewed February 22, 2006
Love Affair is the kind of movie that can cut right through my hard, acerbic, wise-cracking exterior and expose my soft, romantic underbelly.
The story (later remade as An Affair To Remember (1957) and again as Love Affair (1994)) is somewhat melodramatic, but the humor brought to it by the leads more than […]
Viewed February 21, 2006
Perhaps it is because it is the first “Harry Potter” film that is saw after having experienced the book, but Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the first film that I felt really missed essential elements of the story.
Mostly it was subtlety that went out the window. Director Mike […]
Viewed February 20, 2006
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the film that brought down the mighty house of Square. Until making this film, Square was a highly respected and successful video game company, mostly on the strength of its “Final Fantasy” series of RPGs. The Spirits Within was to be their big crossover […]
Viewed February 19, 2006
The Check Up is a short film starring Joe “Joey Pants” Pantoliano and Kevin Connolly (Entourage) made by Volkswagen to promote their 2006 Jetta.
With advertisement/films like this (which due to their increasing presense I have dubbed “Cinéma-Annoncez”), the important issue is whether they are able to rise above the level of being […]
Viewed February 18, 2006
The Finishing Touch is an early entry in the Laurel & Hardy pairing and sets the stage for many more “working man” comedies to follow.
The premise is a simple one: Stan and Oliver are hired to finish the construction of a house. The pressures of finishing quickly, combined with the need […]
Viewed February 17, 2006
Digging through my laserdisc collection, I came upon a disc of the cult hit Mad Max, much to my surprise. I had forgotten I had bought it. I was also struck by the fact that although I had seen both of its sequels, The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max […]
Viewed February 16, 2006
Private Snuffy Smith is based on the long running comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and mines some of the same hillbilly territory covered by the more famous Li’l Abner, which had made it’s own leap to the big screen two years earlier.
It’s a fun little movie, from a time when […]
Viewed February 15, 2006
The Fat Spy tries to be a typical 60s beach romp. The only thing that separates it from, say, your average beach comedy would be a viable plot, some meaningful characters, a cast that cares and some jokes. In a nutshell, the plot follows an attempt to find the fountain […]
Viewed February 14, 2006
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t is the story of a man trapped between the world he inhabits and the one he hopes for (but probably isn’t really for him, anyway). General Lui rules over a section of China and is despised by his people. His wife ignores him (instead […]
Viewed February 13, 2006
There’s always an interesting dynamic when you watch a film that has already built up a strong cult following before you get to see it. Such was the case for Withnail and I, and such is the case with Napoleon Dynamite. I was already aware of the “Vote for Pedro” […]
Viewed February 12, 2006
Star Wars is my favorite film of all tme and the Star Wars Saga is pretty much the touchstone for everything I enjoy from comics to video games to toys, etc. etc. But Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith came out last year and there are no Star […]
Viewed February 11, 2006
Taking a break from the Arbuckle/Keaton series of films, this week I watched a pre-Oliver Hardy outing from Stan Laurel, Mud and Sand. It is a parody of the classic Rudolph Valentino film Blood and Sand (1922) and follows the plot of that previous film; a tale of the rise and […]
Viewed February 10, 2006
After watching so much Buster Keaton material from his classic silent era, I was in the mood to see some more from his “down” period. I came across Speak Easily, Keaton’s second film in which he is paired with Jimmy Durante and gave it a shot.
And it’s not bad. Sure, […]
Viewed February 9, 2006
The “Carry On” gang tackle the American western in Carry On Cowboy and it proves to be a very entertaining entry, if not one of the best.
The main problem is, I must admit, the accents. Kenneth Williams does allright, as does Joan Sims. But Sid James’ accent is so bad […]
Viewed February 8, 2006
My interest in Auto Focus obviously comes from an interest in Bob Crane. I had been a fan of Hogan’s Heroes when I was a kid, but had kind of forgotten about it over the years. I remember being incensed when TV Guide named it the second worst sit-com of […]
Viewed February 7, 2006
Okay, David Hasselhoff as Marvel Comics’ hard-bitten World War II veteran Nick Fury. There. The worst conceptual aspect of Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD is out in the open and it’s not as bad as you think. It’s not very good, but given Marvel’s track record circa 1998, there […]
Viewed February 6, 2006
I, like many of my generation, first saw Sir Alec Guiness in Star Wars (1977). To me he was Obi-Wan Kenobi and it was quite a surprise to learn years later that not only did he have a long and distinguished career behind him, but that he had been a bona […]
Viewed February 5, 2006
Almost immediately after Mary Shelley published her groundbreaking novel Frankenstein in 1818, it was being adapted for performance. The play Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein hit the boards in 1823, just five years later. (Although there may have been an aborted attempt in 1821.) Since that time the […]
Viewed February 4, 2006
The Bell Boy is another case of a Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle short with too little meat on its bones. But the performances are at least strong and the comedy lively.
The basic sructure of The Bell Boy is the wacky goings-on at a hotel. Caught in the middle of it all […]
Viewed February 3, 2006
Your ability to enjoy Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades (1972)* is probably directly linked to your tolerance for violence. The “Lone Wolf and Cub” movies are exceptionally violent affairs. Based on the comics by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, they tell the story of Ogami Itto, a […]
Viewed February 2, 2006
The melancholy Dane’s thoughts on acting and their relevance to Hamlet (2000):
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you,
trippingly on the tongue.
In other words, don’t mumble, like Ethan Hawke and most of the cast does throughout the movie.
But if you mouth it, as many of our
players do, […]
Viewed February 1, 2006
Okay, so it’s not fair to expect much from a “skinemax”-type superhero movie, whose main focus is (quite naturally) the sex. The problem is, I’ve seen good films in the genre, even from the people who made SpiderBabe.
A little over a year ago, my brother told me I should see this […]
I’m not sure how wise it is to tack this on to the task at hand, but I have decided (in the best show business tradition) to hand out monthly awards. (And, yes, that probably means I’ll do an end of year one as well.)
So let’s get this started:
Best Supporting Actor
Samuel L. Jackson as […]
Viewed January 31, 2006
Now Withnail & I is a film that I have been aware of for quite some time. Both my sister and her husband (hi guys!) have been trying to get me to watch it for years. But my interest was not really piqued until I found out that it starred […]
Viewed January 30, 2006
I avoided Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when it first came out mostly because it was friggin’ everywhere. I had already seen more than my fair share of Hong Kong martial arts/revenge flicks, so I was dumbfounded at the treatment the film recieved. I didn’t see anything in the trailers or […]
Viewed January 29, 2006
Watching the (so far) mostly disappointing Roscoe Arbuckle / Buster Keaton shorts put me in the mind to see something with a bit more substance. The only Keaton feature that I owned, but had not seen, was his final film before going to work for MGM, Steamboat Bill, Jr., so I […]