What a waste. Quite literally, in one segment. That’s why calling Movie 43 a piece of crap is apropos. If this junk is what movie humor has evolved to, then the future is frightening, both for the format, and for audiences […]
Continue reading »Month: January 2013
Broken City (2013) ☆ ☆ 1/2
A strong cast helps put across what is a somewhat muddled political drama. Mark Wahlberg stars as a former NYC cop pushed off the force due to his role in a shooting (for which he is publicly exonerated). Seven years […]
Continue reading »Zero Dark Thirty (2012) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to The Hurt Locker is a tough, brutal, violent, somber, contemporary war drama that examines how we have fought the war on terror in the Middle East, and, eventually, caught Osama bin Laden. It has to be tough, […]
Continue reading »Life of Pi (2012) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
I saw the preview for this movie so many times that I actually delayed seeing the movie until today. I shouldn’t have waited; Life of Pi is an amazing movie in many ways and definitely worth seeing. It is philosophically ambiguous, […]
Continue reading »The Last Stand (2013) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back, out of politics and up on the big screen where he belongs. Of course, one can read political meanings into this story of a tough Arizona sheriff determined to prevent a drug cartel kingpin (the […]
Continue reading »Promised Land (2012) ☆ ☆
Some movies that address controversial issues or situations tend to dance around the details of their stories, afraid of offending one side or the other. When this happens those movies never quite pack the punch that they promise. Such is […]
Continue reading »The Impossible (2012) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
Making a movie about one of the most horrific natural disasters in human history is undoubtedly a daunting task, yet Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona has tackled it and produced a film that is, by turns, harrowing, touching, devastating and […]
Continue reading »The Man in the White Suit (1951) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
With starring roles in The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man in the White Suit, 1951 was a fabulous year for Alec Guinness. In the latter comedy Guinness portrays Sidney Stratton, a guileless inventor who is on the trail of […]
Continue reading »The Tall Target (1951) ☆ ☆ ☆
A footnote in the history of Abraham Lincoln’s ascension to the presidency of the United States is fictionalized in The Tall Target (1951), a dandy little thriller. Dick Powell portrays detective John Kennedy (yes, yet another interesting Lincoln-Kennedy connection) who […]
Continue reading »Tension (1949) ☆ ☆ ☆
Another solid little movie from the film noir gallery that was so popular in the ‘40s is Tension (1949). It benefits from excellent performances but its real power lies in the way that director John Berry frames the story, indicating […]
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