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!
On The Downey Jr. Vehicle, “The Judge”
I don't know much about defense attorneys, but I don't completely buy the depiction of them, or of one of the prosecutors (David Krumholtz), in David Dobkin's new film, The Judge (2014). There's something utterly specious here. Still, although this legal drama is...
See Drew Ride: “Riding In Cars With Boys” (2001)
Riding in Cars With Boys is what finally gets Beverly Donofrio (Drew Barrymore) pregnant. The young man (Steve Zahn) who must then marry her eventually turns into a junkie; Beverly throws him out. Raising her little boy alone, she is permanently prevented from going...
Bent “Bend”: The 1952 Movie, “Bend of the River”
Anthony Mann's Bend of the River (1952) is a rugged, natural beauty-loving Western, but much about the narrative doesn't hold up. Surely a pack of hostile men would not ride their horses into an unoccupied area with a burning campfire and thus risk an ambush from...
They’re Right About “Gone Girl”, It’s A Winner
Unpleasant as it is, Gone Girl (2014) is the misanthropic David Fincher movie I've been waiting for. I have no use for Seven and The Social Network, but this film, not merely unpleasant, is riveting and pulpy-good. Does polished Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) deserve to...
“Gotham” Blues On TV
So far we're waiting for the maturation of such villains as the Penguin and Catwoman and of Bruce Wayne's Batman (if indeed it takes place) in the new Fox TV series, Gotham (on Monday nights), but in the meantime there is no mere modicum of criminal activity in...
Nicolas Cage At The End Of The Age: The New “Left Behind”
Who says there will be a pre-Tribulation Rapture? It doesn't seem quite compatible with what the Bible says about the suffering of the saints, but maybe the Christians who believe in it are right; I don't know. The 2014 Left Behind movie has a way of making the...
On The Bergman Effort, “Wild Strawberries” (1959)
In Wild Strawberries (1959), an old man and esteemed professor gets, in a way, bludgeoned for being less virtuous than others would suspect. (He's expressionistically bludgeoned.) Is there anything that saves this famous Ingmar Bergman film? NO. It's tiresome...
Ayckbourn’s “The Norman Conquests” Rules!
The Alan Ayckbourn play, The Norman Conquests, and its televised performance (in 1977 and available on DVD) make for a magnificent experience. This is actually a triptych of plays featuring six British characters, all but one of them related. Many a fault, or sin, is...
Probably The Best Fellini Film: “I Vitelloni”
Federico Fellini's 1954 film I Vitelloni ("Overgrown Calves") proves just how satisfying an original screenplay can be. Three heads, one of them Fellini's, produced it, and the result is a sure artistic success about life as lived by five young men in a provincial...
