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!
God and the Girl: The 1967 French Film, “Mouchette”
The Robert Bresson picture, Mouchette (1967), is an adaptation of a short novel by Georges Bernanos. The novel, a successful one, is about a preteen French girl living in harsh, awful surroundings. Dirt poor Mouchette is disliked by her peers and has an...
It’s a “Dark Blue World” Out There
Dark Blue World (2001) is a Czech World War II film with a nifty story and well-known themes. The dramatis personae includes Franta, a Czech pilot imprisoned by the Communists of his homeland because he fought German aircraft for the RAF and is now feared to be...
Hitchcock Gets Even With Women: 1972’s “Frenzy”
Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972) is excellently directed rubbish, without even the gripping force of Psycho and The Birds. Anthony Shaffer's script has to do with a psychopathic rapist-murderer in London, and there's nothing wrong with the movie's realism per se. But,...
“Black Girl” in an Early ’60s World: On Ousmane Sembene’s Film
The 1965 short film, Black Girl, is the only feature I've seen by the late Ousmane Sembene, a Senegalese writer and director. Mbissine Therese Diop, who plays Diouana, the black girl of the title, is not much of an actress and the voiceover narration is awfully...
The Literate “Metropolitan”
Metropolitan (1990) is the fascinating Whit Stillman's first film. I staunchly disagree with those critics who say it's his best; I think it's his weakest. In its last few scenes the movie's story self-destructs incorrigibly, and there is some mild sentimentality...
The Debauchery-Free “Good Time” Video
I can hardly stand music videos, and "Good Time" by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen is the kind of catchy pop song you get tired of after about ten listenings. But bring together "Good Time" and its accompanying little film, and you have a likable entertainment. The...
“Zero Dark Thirty” Is A Worthy Film – A Movie Review
Apparently some of the material in the Kathryn Bigelow film, The Hurt Locker, was rather laughable; certain bomb-disposal soldiers found it so. Certain bits and pieces in Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (2012), written by Mark Boal, probably are as well, while other...
Bach Making Choral Music Happy
Listening to his Cantata 140, one may well opine that Bach was a genius of a melodymaker. Melody shines throughout the choruses, duets and recitatives here, and Christian optimism pervades. Bach makes choral music happy; his art is, of course, a sanguine art....
The Stench Of Television
The tasteless and sloppy rubbish found in so many Hollywood movies is now much in evidence in TV programs. Twenty-five minutes of the Fox series, The Following, is all I could take the other night. Later episodes might be better, but I'm too disgusted to care. The...
