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!
Seeing “Red”: The ’94 Kieslowski Film
The late Kryzysztof Kieslowski of Poland directed and co-wrote in the early Nineties a film trilogy named after the three colors of the French flag---blue, white and red---which was intended to express something about the virtue-ideals represented by those colors. ...
Disturbing Schenectady: “The Place Beyond the Pines”
Derek Cianfrance, writer-director of the second-rate Blue Valentine, has a respectable film in The Place Beyond the Pines (2013). The three-part chronicle proffers Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), a virile stunt motorcyclist who finds out the tiny son of ex-lover Romina...
What’s Splendid About It? “Splendor in the Grass”
Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961), set in the late 20s, is about "the dangers of [sexual] abstinence" (Stanley Kauffmann). It's abysmally stupid. The screenplay is flimsy and hyperbolic. (It was written by Kazan and William Inge; the story is Inge's.) It is...
The 1993 “Life with Mikey” is a Comedy Better Than Most
To me, the family-friendly movie Life with Mikey (1993) is entertaining, primarily because Marc Lawrence's script is studded with nifty one-liners handily uttered by Michael J. Fox and Nathan Lane. This is the one about an affable but lazy good-for-nothing (Fox) who...
The Pleasures of “Himalaya”
What a blessing it is to be able to see a film such as Himalaya, set in Nepal's Dolpo region, on the big screen. Yes, it came to Tulsa in 2002---a fictional near-documentary made by Frenchman Eric Valli, a former National Geographic photographer and author. The story...
Aldrich’s 1971 Effort, “The Grissom Gang”
The forgotten The Grissom Gang (1971) was directed by Robert Aldrich, maker of Kiss Me Deadly and The Dirty Dozen. What could have been a decent crime flick-cum-1920s period piece lacks the finesse of the morally offensive Bonnie and Clyde, even if it has its...
Cinematic Merit from Mamet: 1999’s “The Winslow Boy”
An often disappointing artist, David Mamet is also a talented one. As well, he is now a conservative---and was probably leaning toward conservatism as long ago as 1999, the year he released his dandy film adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play, The Winslow Boy. The...
Fellini’s “Amarcord” — Yuck!
The Federico Fellini film, Amarcord (1974), is autobiographical and nostalgic and seeks to be genial, amusing and slightly political and religious. In the final analysis, it is an overrated load of insulting grossness. An adolescent picture partially about...
A Few Kind Words for the Recent “Les Miserables”
Directed by Tom Hooper, Les Miserables (2012) may be the most naturalistic movie musical I've seen, though its theatrical character never disappears. Most if not all the filming of this well-known stage work is smoothly successful, despite a few grating singing...
