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!
Something Called “Fay Grim”
Fay Grim (2008), by Hal Hartley, is superficial and ridiculous. A sequel to Hartley's odious Henry Fool, it stars the gifted Parker Posey as a bemused woman, Fay Grim, who is patently not much of a character but must endure intelligence officials and locate her...
Randolph Scott Revisited: “Comanche Station”
Despite a few clinkers, the 1960s were a good decade for cinematic Westerns. March of '60 saw the last Randolph Scott picture Bud Boetticher directed: the 75-minute Comanche Station. Ride the High Country or True Grit it ain't---it's minor---but still has a lot...
Speak No Evil ‘Cause “Enough Said” Is Good
Nicole Holofcener has a new movie out---Enough Said (2013)---and again she has nothing to say about politics (or religion) and everything to say about human relationships and the undesirable behavior therein. Good for her. Critic Joe Morgenstern is right: Eva, the...
Poland During The Holocaust: “In Darkness”
The Agnieszka Holland film, In Darkness (2012), from Poland, relates the true story of a Polish sewer worker and the few Jews he hides from the Nazis in the city sewers. Coarse and initially unprincipled, the sewer worker later turns compassionate and solicitous. Of...
Mamet Inspired By The Headlines: “Phil Spector”
The Phil Spector in the HBO film, Phil Spector (2013), written and directed by David Mamet, is probably not guilty of even second-degree murder. Mamet, indeed, has clearly conveyed that his film is NOT "based on a true story"---period. Spector here is a rich,...
Raise Your Glass To Shackleton: “The Endurance”
On The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition (2001): It was in the early modern age---1914---that Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed from London with his 28-member crew with the goal of trekking across Antarctica. They were not the first group of men never...
The Movie “Prisoners”: As Dumb As They Come
The men and women in Prisoners (2013) are mostly either lunatics or idiots---in the case of Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), a thoroughgoing idiot. Dover is a blue-collar fellow who, after his young daughter is abducted, just KNOWS that the culprit is Paul Dano's...
Hooray for “The Wizard of Oz: The IMAX Experience”
Wow! Judy Garland in 3D IMAX! Only in a 3D Meet Me in St. Louis would she look lovelier and, because older, more distinguished. But IMAX screens in 2013 are presenting the redheaded, freckled girl who never should have grown up (to be middle-aged, anyway) in Victor...
Commentary on Some of the Finest Christian Pop Songs #2
Wayne Watson has written numerous good songs, some of them having a melody as terrific as that in "For Such a Time as This", a rousing, inspirational Christian song sung by Watson in his usual earnest style. The voice of Canadian folkie Bruce Cockburn is not as...
