I was completely unaware of the true history behind this story, and I am glad that a movie has been made to convey it to a wide audience, for there are among us people who stubbornly refuse to accept historical […]
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The Girl on the Train (2016) ☆ ☆ 1/2
This film, like the book upon which it is based, has garnered acclaim, some of it deserved. And yet I am not a fan of the film, for two reasons I will detail below. But first, the good. Tate Taylor’s film […]
Continue reading »Deepwater Horizon (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
The 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig led to the worst oil spill in U. S. history; it was in the news for months, with consequences that are still being felt in the Gulf Region. While it was […]
Continue reading »Masterminds (2016) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Like Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Masterminds takes a dramatic situation and plays it for laughs. A terrific comic thriller could have been made from this real-life caper; what we have instead is a slapstick comedy of errors. The movie makes […]
Continue reading »The Dressmaker (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
We stay in the South Pacific (following New Zealand’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople) with a quirky tale from Australia entitled The Dressmaker. It is comic, dramatic, mysterious, troubling, heartrending and beautiful — one of the best films of the year. Dress […]
Continue reading »Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) ☆ ☆ ☆
Movies can succeed in many ways, one of which is taking a dramatic story with troubling aspects and making a wacky comedy out of it. That is what has occurred with Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a New Zealand production. An […]
Continue reading »Little Men (2016) ☆ ☆ 1/2
The title doesn’t do this movie any favors, suggesting as it does another Louisa May Alcott edition or a ensemble piece of height-challenged actors. Instead, this realistic drama spotlights how a budding friendship between two adolescent boys is threatened when […]
Continue reading »The Magnificent Seven (2016) ☆ ☆ 1/2
This is film is a textbook example of why remakes of classic films rarely measure up to the originals. The original, a 1960 western, based itself on the 1954 Japanese classic Seven Samurai, is a marvelous film that made stars of […]
Continue reading »Classics Introduction
The idea behind this feature is simple. I want my wife Barbara to see more really good older movies, and I want to see more classics myself, so I determined to start a blog wherein we view and review them. […]
Continue reading »Double Indemnity (1944) ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Writer-director Billy Wilder was just reaching his peak in the early 1940s, hitting his first grand slam with this noirish murder mystery. It was so well-received that its two word title, swiped from insurance industry lingo, has become more synonymous […]
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