Reviews
“Mr. Rearden,” said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, “if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling, but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater [...]
Continue reading about Atlas Shrugged: a brief review w/spoilers
This remains my favorite Christmas movie (yes, even over “A Christmas Story”). It is a musical version of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”, starring Albert Finney in the title role. I am not alone in my praise for this movie; note that of the 406(!) customer reviews for it at Amazon, 366 (90%) give it 5 [...]
Continue reading about Christmas recommendation: “Scrooge” (1970)
[UPDATED 2134 MDT: Uh, corrected David Zucker's last name. Thanks, Kevin!] [UPDATED 1604 MDT: Got an Ace-o-lanche going on, with other links coming in -- welcome all! Also made a few minor edits.] The Devil, the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked. – Sir Thomas More I went into “An American Carol” with guarded [...]
Continue reading about “An American Carol”: a brief review w/spoilers
Actually, it’s hard to write much of a review without giving away key plot points, so this first part will be brief (and spoilers listed below). Truly an outstanding film. Not perfect (see the spoilers section), but every bit as tense, intelligent, and morally complex as the crime dramas that regularly get Oscar nominations. Put [...]
Continue reading about “The Dark Knight”: a brief review (w/spoilers)
You could probably devise an interesting psychological profiling test around a person’s favorite Pixar film; mine happens to be “The Incredibles”, so make of that what you will. What is telling is that Pixar has yet to make either a bad or an unsuccessful movie, a pretty stunning achievement given the river of diluted sludge [...]
Continue reading about “WALL-E”: a brief review (w/spoilers)
Oh, for things that might have been. I saw “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” on opening day, and — for all the grumblings that I’ve seen in other reviews — I actually liked it. Shia LaBeouf wasn’t as bad as I feared, and it was a joy seeing Karen Allen — [...]
Continue reading about “Indiana Jones and the City of Gods”: a brief review (w/spoilers)
OK, I wrote an initial review after watching Part 1 of A&E’s miniseries, “The Andromeda Strain”. It was goofy and heavy-handed in its political agenda, but was still a bit fun, and I was waiting to see how Part 2 went. So now I’ve watched Part 2, which (IMHO) descended from goofiness into full-blown stupidity. [...]
Continue reading about “The Andromeda Strain”: a brief review (w/spoilers)
OK, Sandra and I just finished watching the first two hours of A&E’s mini-series, “The Andromeda Strain”, based on the Michael Crichton novel. Sandra, about 45 minutes into tonight’s showing, turned to me and said, “This is like a SciFi Channel movie, but made with better actors.” What makes that really funny is that she [...]
Continue reading about “The Andromeda Strain” (pt. 1): a brief review (w/spoilers)
I missed seeing Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” while it was in theaters. It was not for a lack of desire; it’s just that I don’t like going to the movies by myself, especially if my wife isn’t out of town — and she just wasn’t that interested in seeing [...]
“Shutter”, which just opened on Friday, is an Americanized remake of a Thai horror film named “Shutter” (or whatever the equivalent is in Thai). It (the remake) stars Joshua Jackson (“Ben Shaw”) and Rachel Taylor (“Jane Shaw”) as a newlywed couple that moves from New York to Japan so that Ben can take a job [...]
Continue reading about “Shutter”: a brief review (with spoilers)