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!
Finally Getting a Look at Lonergan’s “Margaret” – A Movie Review
The title of Kenneth Lonergan's film, Margaret (2012), is taken from the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem "Spring and Fall." Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) has an innocent involvement in the accidental death of a stranger killed by a careless bus driver. Her subsequent pain and...
An Italian Work Of Art: The Film, “Il Bell Antonio”
Adapted from a novel by Vitaliano Brancati which I did not much care for, the 1960 Italian film, Il Bell Antonio, is a work for which I care a lot. It deals with an undeniably handsome man, Antonio (Marcello Mastroianni), reputed to be a stud but who is in reality, in...
The Too-Worldly Ali: “Always Be My Maybe”
It is harmful to the Netflix-produced romantic comedy, Always Be My Maybe (2019), that the female lead, Ali Wong, has no charm. Randall Park, the male lead, does, and so do a few of the other actors, notably the winsome Vivian Bang (as Jenny). But Wong is too...
Warmth In The Cold: Rohmer’s “A Tale of Winter”
The chief character in Eric Rohmer's French film, A Tale of Winter (1992, available on YouTube), Felicie (Charlotte Very) is a not-very-bright young woman who is "protected" by the supernatural, by God. She is protected in the sense of being granted a miracle of...
Wright’s “Pride & Prejudice” – A Movie Review
Pride and Prejudice has been filmed again, this time by Joe Wright and with an ampersand in the title. Now it's Pride & Prejudice (2005) and it stars Keira Knightley (of course) as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew MacFadyen as Darcy. I learn from critic David...
Ready To Buy “The White Balloon”
Directed by Jafar Panahi and written by the acclaimed filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian picture, The White Balloon (2005), is talky but brilliant. At the center here is the childish desire for a chubby, not a skinny, goldfish for an Iranian New Year's...
A Private Life Rather Crazy: The Film, “The Private Life of Henry VIII”
The 1933 British movie, The Private Life of Henry VIII, by Alexander Korda, ushers us into the awful sphere wherein Anne Boleyn (Merle Oberon) is executed, but, avoiding all genuine unpleasantness, the picture doesn't make this very troubling. The film is pure...
The Original “Get Carter” Gets Rough
An English gangster, Jack Carter (Michael Caine), seeks to learn the truth about his brother's death by investigating a rival mob. Long before there was the British film Croupier, there was the British film Get Carter (1971), directed with flair by Mike Hodges. Both...
The Siren’s A Dancer: “Siren of the Tropics”
Siren of the Tropics (1927) is an interesting but rather silly silent film, from France, which is the first full-length picture to star an African American performer: the dancer Josephine Baker. Baker's dancing is admirably confident, her body strong and agile, in...
