Blog
These stories have been around a long time. Some of them I have updated. Many of them I haven’t. This started out when blogs were like, new!
The Rapidly Flowing “Jules and Jim”
In the French film Jules and Jim (1961), from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche, Jules, Jim and Catherine flow into play, ecstasy and romantic love and then into disappointment and the reality of Catherine being "a dark flame ready to burn herself or anyone else" (David...
A Fast-And-Furious Wild Bunch In “Baby Driver”
Today's Hollywood trudges on. Multiethnic madness---and villainy---prevail in Edgar Wright's Baby Driver (2017), with its speedily moving wild bunch. Jon Hamm is even better here, playing a married crook turned killer, than he was in Mad Men. Hamm is Buddy, who's...
Cameron In ’86: “Aliens”
Aliens, the 1986 sequel to Alien, is a big-time adventure film, and I mean the 153-minute director's cut from James Cameron. It is less imaginative than the first film (by Ridley Scott), however, and completely inartistic. But the same everything-at-stake suspense...
Miss Pris And The Rest In “Blade Runner”
Animals have feelings too. And, in Blade Runner (1982), so do genetically engineered replicants. But they can't be trusted any more than human beings can be. Rick Deckard, Blade Runner (Harrison Ford), is sent out to kill four of them who are on the earth,...
Fiances Separated: Italy’s “I Fidanzati”
Giovanni and Liliana, engaged to be married, are capable of bringing joy to each other, but . . . it might not happen for a long while. Or it will happen only periodically. The couple must be temporarily separated from each other because they cannot afford to marry...
“Tristana” Blues
After her mother's death, Tristana (Catherine Deneuve) in 1970's Tristana, becomes the ward of a much older man, Don Lope (Fernando Rey). Innocent because of her youth, Tristana is eventually propositioned by Don Lope, agreeing to go to bed with him. Hereafter she...
Don’t Love “Shane” But I Like It
Directed by George Stevens, Shane (1953) is a Western---interestingly, one in which everything points to America still being a relatively young country. Men try to make a living in a spacious land where deer approach farms and a muddy ground fronts a needed dry goods...
The Anointed Jamie: On Quatro’s Fiction
I'm unable to tell how valuable are the stories of Jamie Quatro that are heavily influenced by the literary avant garde. But it's different with a story like "Better to Lose An Eye," whose conventional narrative shows, I believe, artistic merit. Quatro's fiction is...
Wit ‘N’ Thrills: The Movie, “Charade”
Reggie (the Audrey Hepburn character): Do you know what's wrong with you? The Cary Grant character: What? Reggie: Absolutely nothing. But wait. Reggie believes this because she's infatuated with the Grant character and doesn't really know him. Doesn't the charade...
