I have never been a big fan of Judd Apatow’s. I find his films to be crude, lewd and rude, without enough dramatic counterbalance. But perhaps I’ve been too rash in my dismissal of Apatow, because Trainwreck is somewhat different for […]
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Lili (1953) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
We move from Italy to France with our third selection of the year, the musical comedy-drama Lili (1953). It’s an MGM musical, filmed at the California studio, but it certainly seems like France. Parisian-influenced films were certainly popular at the time, […]
Continue reading »Lili (1953)
by Barb Lentz. The five movies Bob provided me from which to choose were these: The Best Man (1964) Lili (1953) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) Running on Empty (1988) Union Station (1950) I chose Lili because it […]
Continue reading »Paper Towns (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆
I liked The Fault in Our Stars last year, and I think Paper Towns, based on a book by the same author, is even better. It creates multidimensional, realistic teenage characters of a nerdy bent (they’re in band, get good grades, […]
Continue reading »Southpaw (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆
I have come to believe that it is rather difficult to make an uninteresting or non-compelling boxing movie. At the center are two men (or women) in primal form, knocking the snot out of each other, often in slow motion […]
Continue reading »Pixels (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
It’s been a while since Adam Sandler actually produced or starred in anything of cinematic value. Pixels actually comes close. It has ambition; it wants to become the Ghostbusters of the arcade video game era. With a stronger script and less rambling […]
Continue reading »Terminator: Genisys (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
I love the Terminator. Not the cyborg so much, but the first, low-budget film in 1984, co-written and directed by James Cameron. It’s as close to a perfect little movie as one can get, astonishing in its execution. Most people […]
Continue reading »Mr. Holmes (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
There have been many successful stand-alone films about Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle (as opposed to the famous series with Basil Rathbone), and now Ian McKellen is playing Holmes as a real person, years after […]
Continue reading »Self/Less (2015) ☆ ☆ ☆
I appreciate when a “high-concept” science-fiction thriller or action movie boasts enough ambition to address large questions; that’s much of what makes the genre my all-time favorite. Self/Less questions mankind’s quest for immortality, wondering whether sacrifices made to gain immortality are […]
Continue reading »Max (2015) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Sometimes the idea behind a movie is better than the resulting movie. Probably often, I would think. The idea behind Max is to salute the working dogs of the U.S. military (and their human handlers) with the honor of a feature […]
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