They Shot the Piano Player (2024)
Spanish director Fernando Truaba is one of those [...]
Archive for May, 2012
Men in Black III (2012)
The great joy of the Men in Black movies can be found in the open-ended ideals of science fiction itself. The series, like the best of the genre, offers the possibilities of new places, new creatures and new ideas to be explored. The original 1997 film had a grand idea: What if there were federal […]
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly & Beautiful (2012)
The most refreshing thing about The Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly & Beautiful is that, for once, here is a movie about adults who act like adults. They are not merely adults who act like wrinkled 20 year-olds, but real adults who act their age in a way that is logical, funny, sad, and […]
Dark Shadows (2012)
Dark Shadows is a movie that begins with a wonderfully melodramatic fire, but then ultimately sinks under a plot that seems to give up half way through. Like all Tim Burton productions, it looks marvelous, evoking a centuries old family-built seaside village and a mansion that seems to reek of ancient family secrets. Unfortunately, like […]
And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)
A man walks into the office of a guidance counselor and takes a seat. The counselor advises the man that he has looked over his aptitude tests and concluded that the best position suited to him would be in accounting. “But I am an accountant,” the man says, “I have been one for the past […]
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (2012)
I am surprised to report that I am not as angry with Tim and Eric’s movie as I should be. Their TV show makes me itch, but their movie is less torpor than it is banality at feature-length. In an odd way, I mean that as a compliment. I wouldn’t say that this movie is […]
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (2011)
There’s an impulse within some people to create that becomes a single-minded passion. Kevin Clash remembers when the itch to create puppets first struck him. At a young age, he laid eyes on the perfect fabric and was propelled to start cutting, shaping and molding until he had created the image that was in his […]
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)
With all the good will in the world, I sat through Jonathan Livingston Seagull with an open mind and struggled against my better judgment not to be cynical. Yet, I failed and the cynicism found me anyway. I have an open mind toward almost anything, but in this case I must confess that there will […]
Blackthorn (2011)
Blackthorn is one of the cleanest westerns that I have ever seen. I don’t mean the content, like the language or the violence; I mean the sets, the actors, and even the dirt look polished and cleaned-up as it were prepared for a commercial. That might work for a John Wayne picture, but modern westerns […]
