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!
Re The Indie, “Tadpole” (2000)
There is fine acting from Bebe Neuwirth, John Ritter, Sigourney Weaver and the newcomer, Aaron Stanford. There is a fairly funny and unpredictable script by Heather McGowan and Niels Muller. Gary Winick's decision to shoot the film in DV is acceptable because...
Sissy Is Faultless: “Our Little Sister”
The characters in the new Japanese picture, Our Little Sister (proper title: Umimachi Diary), hold our attention, but I find the story mediocre because certain things are laid on so thickly (a now dead woman became involved with Sachi's married father; now Sachi is...
You Go, “Shopgirl”
I've never read Steve Martin's novella Shopgirl, on which this 2008 film is based, but I mostly admire his script for the film---more than I do his wan acting. Directed by Anand Tucker, Shopgirl stars Claire Danes as an L.A. sales clerk for Sak's. Lonely and sans a...
Have Fun With “Sudden Fear” (The Movie)
Revived this month in a New York City theatre, the 1952 thriller Sudden Fear, by David Miller (who?), presents love being replaced by self-preservation, both belonging to Joan Crawford's Myra Hudson. Myra adores, and marries, the unscrupulous actor Lester (Jack...
Trangressin’ Up And Down: The 1990 Film, “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!”
There really isn't much to Almodovar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Atame! 1990) because it exists only to be daring or---if you will---transgressive, not to convey a shared vision of life. It is also decidedly politically incorrect, which is okay by me, since it deals...
Get Thee To The Nunnery In “The Nun’s Story”
Catholic asceticism or self-deprivation, as in a convent, is not for everyone. It is not for every Christian, in fact. In the Fred Zinnemann film, The Nun's Story (1959), strong-willed Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) becomes certain she is failing as a nun, certain she...
Truffaut Welcomes You To “Bed and Board”
Francois Truffaut made Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal, 1970) to show us his autobiographical character, Antoine Doinel---a former juvenile delinquent---as a married man with a child. Casually he tosses in the revelation that Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is often...
Plaidy Vs. John: “The Prince of Darkness” — A Book Review
Was King John of England, who died in 1216, an evil king? Jean Plaidy wrote about him in her 1978 novel, The Prince of Darkness, and to her the answer is certainly yes. It is not long before the book ends that John is forced to sign Magna Carta; before this he...
A Comment On A Silent Film Western
A 64-minute silent film, Hell's Hinges (1916) is a Western released only a couple of decades after the Old West had faded away. A Protestant preacher, accompanied by his Protestant sister, is sent to a western town to start a church. The many reprobate men there...
