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 Hunt And The “Act of Violence”
An early Fred Zinnemann flick, Act of Violence (1948), is at least plausible: A vengeful lame man (Robert Ryan) with a nice girlfriend is hunting a married suburbanite (Van Heflin) who wreaked terrible damage by turning into an informer for the Nazis. Both men were...
Sorry To Report: “Minority Report”
On Minority Report (2002): Washington D.C. in 2054 has apparently solved the social problem of murder through the use of a trio of humans known as "Pre-Cogs," who mystically predict when homicidal deeds will occur. Tom Cruise's John Anderton is at the helm of the...
Mauriac’s Superb “Therese Desqueyroux” — A Book Review
France with its Catholicism exists, of course, in Madame Bovary, but it is somewhat more pronounced in Francois Mauriac's short novel, Therese Desqueyroux (1927). After all, Mauriac was a Christian---or on the verge of becoming one when he wrote Therese---and his...
Madame Huppert: “MB” In 1991
Isabelle Huppert is extraordinary as Emma Bovary in Claude Chabrol's Madame Bovary, a long 1991 effort. The formal achievement of Flaubert's classic novel means that MB cannot really be filmed, but, besides the acting, what shines here is the directorial...
A Shootist In 1950: “The Gunfighter”
The Gunfighter (1950) is a Western that resembles a theatrical drama in that its action is there but minimal. Gregory Peck plays a no-longer-mean shooting ace pursued by the brothers of a man he killed in self-defense. Henry King directed the film tidily and...
“Ben-Hur” Is Back, But . . .
There are two reasons you might want to see the new Ben-Hur movie (2016): 1) the vivid, naturalistic visuals (as in the set design) and 2) the performance of Jack Huston as Judah Ben-Hur. Aside from this . . . no sale. It is literally incredible that Judah Ben-Hur...
Teachout On Tynan
In a recent Wall Street Journal, Terry Teachout reviewed a play titled A Day by the Sea by N.H. Hunter, a British dramatist who died in 1971. Greatly admiring the play, Teachout asked why it was mounted in New York in 1955 but never after that until now, in 2016. ...
Brassy/Bashful And With “Angel Eyes”
Mark Holcomb of The Village Voice is right: Jennifer Lopez, in Angel Eyes (2001), is "winningly brassy/bashful." In this Luis Mandoki film, written by Gerald DiPego, she plays a brassy/bashful policewoman, while handsome Jim Caviezel plays a shaken fellow on a...
“The Passion of Anna,” The Suffering Of The Group
After his divorce and a short time in prison, Andreas Winkleman (Max von Sydow) lives a solitary life until, first, he sleeps one time with a lovely neighbor (Bibi Andersson) and, second, he begins a romantic liaison with the damaged Anna (Liv Ullmann). A Passion,...
