Four friends gather at a villa with the intention of eating themselves to death.
Sit, Eat This is a sort of adventure in shocking an audience. It failed with me because I’ve been exposed to so many more incisive things. But I like the way it is put together. It is a sort of “Love’s Labors Lost” meets “8 1/2 Women.”...
Tortured into a false confession while a POW in Korea, Major Lincoln Bond returns to active service as a test pilot. Determined to clear his name, Bond battles a hard-nosed base commander, prejudiced officers and his own insecurities.
Spam in a Jan Three things noteworthy about this movie, which though big in its day is almost completely forgotten now. It is one of a class of movies where the humans are second class citizens and the prime characters are machines. This class originated almost at...
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
Dissymmetries, sight The good news that we have the brothers reunited and again working on circular narrative. Again, we have a powerful narrative arc that shifts in unexpected and engages in expected ways. The device is hackneyed: messages from the future, but is handled deftly. Where it...
During a car accident, Vincent Eastman watches his whole life flash before his eyes, and he doesn't like what he sees. While maintaining the semblance of a marriage with his wife, Sally, Vincent has been carrying on with a mistress, Olivia. She's everything Sally isn't -- warm, passionate, carefree. So why can't he choose between the two, especially when his indecision is taking its toll on his daughter?
West Coast Architecture I admit to a weakness for any film that attempts to be architectural in some fundamental way. Even the failures — and they are mostly failures — are usually interesting. And this one features a redhead as well, a cinematic device that is...
On a prom-night dare, a trio of high school friends chant an incantation, unleashing an evil spirit from the past with deadly consequences.
Locked in a Box These days the game in horror is a horrible business. Pity the poor filmmaker: she has to have enough formula to give the viewer something to rely on. After all, in a horror film, most of the work is done by the...
A sexually repressed school teacher releases her pent up passions in a series of shocking crimes.
Dark Dread of the Marienbad Snake French films, even artificially French ones like this, compress all their depth and simplicity of reading together. So that after the first few it becomes so boring you need to invent your own depth. In this case, we are helped...
A Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.
Architectural Poetry: the Form of Angst Writing film comments is a true pleasure -- there is nothing else like it. We have the freedom to assume that you, dear reader, have already seen plenty of descriptions about the story, the beauty, the meditative nature, the ambiguous...
A man blinded in a childhood accident fights crime using his superhumanly-elevated remaining senses.
Vision All of a sudden, Hollywood films have discovered that making a visually smart movie could be good business. The second “Harry Potter” film was notable with its architectural eye. Cost a tiny bit extra to get some good people on the case, but a trivial...
Lt. Franta Slama is a top pilot in the Czech Air Force who is assigned to train a promising young flier, Karel Vojtisek, and they soon become friends. When Nazi Germany invades Czechoslovakia in 1939, they both reject the authority of their new leaders and escape to England where they join other Czech exiles in the RAF. While flying a mission over England, Karel crash lands and happens upon the farmhouse of Susan, a young woman whose husband is in the Navy. Karel soon falls head over heels for Susan but, while they enjoy a brief fling, in time Susan decides she prefers the company of the older and more worldly Franta. As Franta and Karel struggle to maintain their friendship despite their romantic rivalry.
Not Czech A nation cannot be a nation unless it has an identity. These days that identity is at least found in and often generated by movies, especially war movies. Also, if a nation has a mature identity, you will see it in the nature of the...
When transplanted Texan Bob Seton arrives in Lawrence, Kansas he finds much to like about the place, especially Mary McCloud, daughter of the local banker. Politics is in the air however. It's just prior to the civil war and there is already a sharp division in the Territory as to whether it will remain slave-free. When he gets the opportunity to run for marshal, Seton finds himself running against the respected local schoolteacher, William Cantrell. Not is what it seems however. While acting as the upstanding citizen in public, Cantrell is dangerously ambitious and is prepared to do anything to make his mark, and his fortune, on the Territory. When he loses the race for marshal, he forms a group of raiders who run guns into the territory and rob and terrorize settlers throughout the territory. Eventually donning Confederate uniforms, it is left to Seton and the good citizens of Lawrence to face Cantrell and his raiders in one final clash.
Before the Pattern John Wayne ruined the western for me. The whole idea of the western until Leone was in constant repetition, walking the same route every time so that subtleties could be emphasised. Since everything else was given, we could focus on the smallest things. Real...
