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!
Tracy Time: The 1990 “Dick Tracy”
After all these years, the Warren Beatty flick Dick Tracy (1990) still offers a good time, even though the necessary action has been palpably upstaged by a host of B movies and TV shows. Tracy's value lies in multicolored art design more luminous than any comic strip...
Not Spectacular, But Good: “The Spectacular Now”
The recent The Spectacular Now (2013) is an adaptation of what is perhaps a fine novel by Tim Tharp, for the movie itself is agreeable. It deals honestly with young love, with primary characters Sutter and Aimee. The former is a friendly boy who drinks too much and...
I’m Gonna Wash That Film Right Out Of My Hair: “Shampoo”
Hal Ashby's Shampoo (1975) is the one about George (Warren Beatty, co-writer and producer of the film), a self-absorbed hairdresser who fornicates with a lot of women, including the wife, the daughter and the mistress of an unsuspecting millionaire (Jack Warden)! A...
A Film Called “Chunhyang”
No doubt about it: South Korea's Chunhyang wins the award for Best Depiction of Connubial Love in 2000 and even preceding years. Adoration, sexual play, and sexual lovemaking between husband and wife---Chunhyang and Mongryong---are all over the first hour, as is a...
Femme Fatal: “Fatal Attraction”
I think it's only a matter of time before Fatal Attraction (1987) starts aging poorly in a way an entertainment movie such as Hitchcock's Psycho has not. Psycho, after all, is better written than FA. Director Adrian Lyne had better material with his remakes...
When Fellini Was At His Best: 1957’s “Nights of Cabiria”
Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (1957) provides us with various levels of content. First, it is the story of a dissatisfied, certainly unloved prostitute (Giulietta Masina, masterly). Second, it is an unprofound but appealing portrait of life in 1950s Italy....
There Is Power In “Blue Jasmine”
One Woody Allen movie after another displeases me, but not the latest one: Blue Jasmine (2013) is a triumph. A minor, imperfect triumph, but a triumph nonetheless. Its power lies in its tragic elements, its dolorous drama. Here, to lose one's money and a spouse's...
Tasty: “The Taste of Others”
When do the tastes of other people dictate too much? Director-scenarist-actor Agnes Jaoui and scenarist-actor Jean-Pierre Bacri, in The Taste of Others (2000), have some idea. When they're not expressing this idea, they are at any rate contemplating when the tastes...
The Froth of ’59: “Pillow Talk”
The old screwball comedies were not always funny, but were still worth watching for their interesting plots. Such is the case with a late screwball comedy---Pillow Talk (1959)---except for the happy fact that this Doris Day-Rock Hudson effort manages to become funny...
