So much has been written about Orson Welles in the last twenty years that it almost feels as though he were a character created by Scott Fitzgerald, a wonderful idea of something worth aspiring to in an attempt to explain a lost moment of time when the United States still felt new. [...]
Friday 03 Sep 2010 |
blogadmin |
drama, movie reviews, recommendations
It’s grim up North.
This, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of novelist David Peace, a native of Yorkshire in England, whose series of books about crime and corruption are the base for this excellent trilogy, originally broadcast on the BBC. Peace is a progenitor of pulp, and obvious student of American [...]
Friday 03 Sep 2010 |
blogadmin |
drama, movie reviews, recommendations, suspense/thrillers
Temple Grandin. Now there’s a name that was ready-built for fame and consequence. It’s a name that may only now be entering household use, but Grandin’s influence, both as a professional and as an example to others, has had a significant impact for decades, in this country and elsewhere. Few [...]
Friday 20 Aug 2010 |
blogadmin |
drama, movie reviews, recommendations
The City of Your Final Destination is the first Merchant-Ivory film to be produced after the death of producer Ismail Merchant. As directed by the now 82-year-old James Ivory, City is an actor’s showcase, nominally about a young man attempting to write an authorized biography of a deceased South American writer.
Friday 20 Aug 2010 |
blogadmin |
drama, movie reviews, recommendations
Goodness, the British certainly do hate Tony Blair…
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
There have been any number of political thrillers released in the last few years, the culmination of the ‘lost years’ of America, where the Bush administration, and its allies in England, have come in for a right kicking over [...]
Friday 06 Aug 2010 |
blogadmin |
blu-ray, drama, movie reviews, recommendations, suspense/thrillers
When choosing a graphic novel to adapt into a screenplay, one must choose wisely. The effects of choosing a novel too complex or dry has often shown its rougher side (I’m speaking of films a la The Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Punisher War Zone). Kick-Ass has a simple plot that, though it may [...]
Friday 06 Aug 2010 |
blogadmin |
action/adventure, blu-ray, movie reviews, recommendations, suspense/thrillers
In the history of cinema, there have been few genres that have been as thoroughly examined as the gangster movie. Dating to the early days of silent film, when the German expressionists were likely the first true practitioners of the ‘noir’ aesthetic, there have always been a handful of directors [...]
Friday 06 Aug 2010 |
blogadmin |
blu-ray, drama, foreign films, movie reviews, recommendations
For this review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I asked my grandkids, Jack, age 10 and Abbie, age 9, for their input. We all watched it twice and the kids watched the Deleted Scenes in the Special Features. We all really loved this movie. Jack and Abbie liked it because it [...]
Friday 06 Aug 2010 |
blogadmin |
blu-ray, comedy, kid's & family, movie reviews, recommendations
Italian cinema was once distinguished for its postwar “neorealism” movement, with films that were shot on location in a stripped down, almost documentary style, exemplified by titles like Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1946) and de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). Times seem to have changed, though not necessarily for the worse. With a [...]
Friday 30 Jul 2010 |
blogadmin |
drama, foreign films, movie reviews, recommendations
Stephen Fry may not be a common household name in the United States, but he’s become a much-beloved figure in British popular culture. Something of a popular intellectual and polymath, he’s well-known there as an actor, comedian, author, and director. He had a long comedy partnership with Hugh Laurie (famous here for [...]
Friday 30 Jul 2010 |
blogadmin |
recommendations, television reviews