Realistic Shmealistic Somewhere in the movie business there really are people who think that the more real a film is, the better. And I mean literally real. We’re not talking here about “Godfather” being the first mafia movie made by Italians, but a prison movie being made by cons whose only goal is to show… Continue reading Animal Factory (2000)
Category: Ones
Films rated one star out of three
8 Women (2002)
3 Women Really I had a lot of trouble with this film. I get what it is trying to do and particularly appreciate the notion. The distance between the story and the music is like that great bowling alley scene in “Buffalo 66” (and the similar bowling alley scene in “Lebowski”). The distance between the… Continue reading 8 Women (2002)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Books, Binding Sidney Pollack recently died, and I dredged this up to watch. It is a strange relic of a time when we really liked these spy stories — and the stories were allowed to be simple. The characters had no life outside the confined story. The story dynamics are simple, the migration of the… Continue reading Three Days of the Condor (1975)
An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000)
Three Goofs There are three things about this little cartoon that should get you up-out-of-your-chair mad. And not just huffing mad, but pounding walls mad. The first is elusive. Walt Disney created Goofy and indeed all of his characters with a single notion: that they would be extremely abstract entities. These were NOT people, and… Continue reading An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000)
Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980)
People Cat I am interested in genre mixing. It is a common thing, especially with various humor components. The gore branch of horror and the porn branch of the sex film try to be mixed here. I say gore rather than zombies because though zombies appear, the form is not that of a zombie flick.… Continue reading Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980)
Duel at Diablo (1966)
Old Paint It is absolutely amazing to me how badly a movie can age. I saw this one in the theatres when new. I remember thinking it was acceptable at the time. There was an actress that I knew from Bergman. There was the surprise of the Indian baby, which I saw in the segregated… Continue reading Duel at Diablo (1966)
Dude, Where’s My Car (2000)
Who’s On First Movies like this are made like chewing gum: a cheap commodity that occupies you if you’re normally sleepwalking. It is nothing but a collection of various jokes in one bag, so the best we can hope for is that one or two of the jokes are good. And by that, I mean… Continue reading Dude, Where’s My Car (2000)
Dressed to Kill (1946)
A Sad Goodbye These Basil Rathbone Holmes movies are a wonder. They deviate so far from the stories in intent, they offend. Yet at the same time, they were important to the redefinition of the British wartime character. They were not important at all in the scheme of evolution that defined the detective genre. They… Continue reading Dressed to Kill (1946)
Pendulum (2001)
Primal Instinct The first howler in this is the notion that Texas hosts the “finest law school in the south,” as if it were possible — and if would matter if it was. Of course, once we are introduced to a DA running for Congress, we know who the villain is. Having made that scriptwriting… Continue reading Pendulum (2001)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Too “American” I actually liked the original for the unexpected reason that it was intelligently stylish. Judging as a viewer, it must be amazingly difficult to be stylish and fresh because Hollywood (and the advertising industry) turns styles into mannerisms. The first film did something pretty novel and interesting. It was in the manner of… Continue reading 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)