Sort by
Listing Movies
Display Movies
Bleak House (2005)

The generous John Jarndyce, struggling with his own past, and his two young wards Richard and Ada, are all caught up, like Lady Dedlock, in the infamous case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, which will make one of them rich beyond imagination if it can ever be brought to a conclusion. As Tulkinghorn digs deeper into Lady Dedlock's past, he unearths a secret that will change their lives forever, and which is almost as astounding as the final outcome of the Jarndyce case.

Television as the Grinder Dickens is a marvel. You have to understand what he did to understand why this adaptation doesn't work. His writing was quite different than anything before. Others built worlds within which things happened. Characters were part of that machine. With Dickens, he...


Published January 20, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
Tagged: , ,
The Black Pirate (1926)
The Love Story of a Bold Buccaneer
Filmmaker(s): Albert Parker

A nobleman vows to avenge the death of his father by the hands of pirates. To this end, he infiltrates the pirate band; Acting in character, he single-handedly captures a merchant vessel, but things are complicated when he finds that there is a beautiful young woman of royal blood aboard.

Archetypical? Many folks believe in the archetype, the notion that deep in the structure of the universe — deeper than we can reach — are certain pure models. There are few of them; they are crisp if not fully definable. And we spend our lives moving...


Published January 18, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Black Cadillac (2003)
Revenge in the driver's seat
Filmmaker(s): John Murlowski

Three young men become terrorized in a high-speed car chase with a mysterious pursuant.

Fins beyond the Law There are some things that naturally are cinematic. Among these are car chases, smoke and snow. Similarly on the story side, people cast together in a small space with an outside threat and unrevealed past relationships. It terms of flow, the most reliable...


Published January 17, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
The New World (2005)
Once discovered, it was changed forever.
Filmmaker(s): Terrence Malick

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

Matoaka's Miranda (This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user, because of some perceived religious slight.) Malick's method is to frame films as remembrances. Remembrances of romantic notions, whether freedom, peace, war or love (as his four films trace)....


Published August 6, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
So many gangsters… so little time.
Filmmaker(s): Stephen Chow

It's the 1940s, and the notorious Axe Gang terrorizes Shanghai. Small-time criminals Sing and Bone hope to join, but they only manage to make lots of very dangerous enemies. Fortunately for them, kung fu masters and hidden strength can be found in unlikely places. Now they just have to take on the entire Axe Gang.

Comedic Self-reference You can read from others about the basic nature of this, and how widely it is admired and enjoyed. I myself admire and enjoy it. It is a movie about movies. Its something between a “Scary Movie” style parody and a “Charlie’s Angel’s” ...


Published August 6, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Beginner’s Luck (1935)
Filmmaker(s): Gus Meins

Spanky's mother pushes him to join a local theater amateur night.

Inverted Show This is my favourite Our Gang short. It has everything that I recall fondly: rowdy fellowship and kids conspiring against adults resulting in innocent mischief. Although the series had already been around a dozen years, for me the master cast was the Spanky, Buckwheat,...


Published June 30, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Bee Season (2005)

11-year-old Eliza is the invisible element of her family unit: her parents are both consumed with work and her brother is wrapped up in his own adolescent life. Eliza ignites not only a spark that makes her visible but one that sets into motion a revolution in her family dynamic when she wins a spelling bee. Finding an emotional outlet in the power of words and in the spiritual mysticism that he sees at work in her unparalleled gift, Eliza's father pours all of his energy into helping his daughter become spelling bee champion. A religious studies professor, he sees the opportunity as not only a distraction from his life but as an answer to his own crisis of faith. His vicarious path to God, real or imagined, leads to an obsession with Eliza's success and he begins teaching her secrets of the Kabbalah. Now preparing for the National Spelling Bee, Eliza looks on as a new secret of her family's hidden turmoil seems to be revealed with each new word she spells.

Letters to God I am coming to believe that no effective movie can be deeply spiritual. We know the problem with cinematic love: how do you show it? Sex? Placed in the midst of larger flows like war? Mystical forces are similar, internal. A bond, a sway...


Published June 30, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Bettie Page: Bondage (1998)
Filmmaker(s): Irving Klaw

Bettie Page - famous for her pin up modeling - and other glamour girls appear in bondage photos and short films. These unique classics are the first film sources of today's fetish and S&M scene and appear nowadays surreal, tender and joyful.

The Previous Edge In all things, there is an inside and an outside and that defines edges. Not edges between, but edges beyond which you can see the difference. There are, I suppose many domains of which this can be said of sex, and the various rituals...


Published June 17, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
Tagged: , ,
Betty Blue (1986)
Filmmaker(s): Jean-Jacques Beineix

A lackadaisical handyman and aspiring novelist tries to support his younger girlfriend as she slowly succumbs to madness.

The Piano Sometimes a film makes a long, long journey. For me this happened in several ways. The first is in real time. I saw this a couple decades ago in the short version. I was unimpressed. The word on it then was all about the first...


Published June 16, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
Æon Flux (2005)
The Perfect World Meets The Perfect Assassin
Filmmaker(s): Karyn Kusama

400 years into the future, disease has wiped out the majority of the world's population, except one walled city, Bregna, ruled by a congress of scientists. When Æon Flux, the top operative in the underground 'Monican' rebellion, is sent on a mission to kill a government leader, she uncovers a world of secrets.

Credible World Science fiction movies are an odd thing. They and “detective” movies depend more heavily on literary conventions than other types of films. But you know, where detective movies have swallowed the form and adapted in rich ways, science fiction hasn’t settled gently into film. Its...


Published May 22, 2023
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
Tagged: , ,
preloader image