Category: Film Reviews

Good but very weird, early (1988) Atom Etgoyan film about a young woman who works in a hotel as a maid obsessed with a coworker, a young male actor who has yet to get a speaking part and, instead, has only done work as a silent extra. The film is odd, dispassionate in some ways…

Good, if overrated and overacted film about nature and human nature, love, insects, and incest, class and caste in Victorian England.

Funded via Kickstarter, this Charles Kaufman weirdly lifelike animated piece follows Michael Stone, an analyst and popular writer on customer service (David Thewlis voice) through his day and appearance as the key speaker at a conference of customer service managers. He is, quite literally in his dreams, falling apart and that serves as the perfect…

Good documentary about the Fox Cable News network. A serious attack on that reactionary bastion. Worth seeing

Good, playful piece with fine acting by Pam Grier, Samuel L Jackson, Robert DeNiro, Michael Keaton, Bridgett Fonda. Quentin Tarrantino meets Elmore Leonard. Less scattered than Pulp Fiction. Rather like “Get Shorty” in tone but darker, edgier production. Fun. About gun runners being tracked by the feds and their use of a stewardess as bait…

Funnier than anticipated boxing movie about a Don King clone who finds another great white hope and uses him well. It’s good on race, sports, and class

Good film from Mike Mills looking at the struggles of 38-yo Oliver (Ewen McGregor) a graphic artist who has always had problems establishing a successful relationship. He learns his widowed father (Christopher Plummer) is gay, has taken a young lover, and is dying of cancer, although he is living with more passion than he ever…

Good, scary war movie with intense first 20 minutes. Well acted, but I am rather upset at how this great opening became a set piece for a war journey picture with a predictable shoot em up ending. This war was hell but was worth the cost, says the film. All part of the boomers wanting…

Funny comedy by Mike Judge based in part on his “Milton” shorts. Three cubicle rats working at ‘soulless inc’. Two are being fired, one promoted for no reason. Very funny stuff and the thing with the stapler is quite good. Still it feels like and is a cartoon come to life. One of Jennifer Aniston’s…

Good film with Kate Winslet starring in the role of Hannah Schmitz, an ex-SS concentration camp guard who has an affair with an adolescent (very well-played by David Kross) in post-war Germany. Ralph Fiennes is excellent as the boy-become-man as he reconsiders his life and love and becomes the reader. A good film that forces…

Good, well-acted piece written and directed by David Mamet. Features excellent ensemble work by a group of fine actors (Steve Martin in a lovely character bit, Rebecca Pigeon [Mamet’s wife], Ben Gazarra, and several other really fine bits of work). Story of industrial espionage and a big con. Like all Mamet-conceived work, this plays through…

Funny scary Korean monster movie When American scientists force Korean scientists to throw chemicals into the river, bad things happen. A well done monster movie that’s worth watching. Sad stuff with the death of a child. Scary monster, but officials from both the US and Korea are the foils in this one. Bureaucracy is death…

Good flick based on the book Breaking the House about MIT students who, guided by a manipulative professor (Kevin Spacey) set out to win big counting cards in Vegas. I watched this one with my daughter and it’s pretty gripping and sort of violent in parts, but exciting nonetheless. How accurate?. I don’t know. I…

Guess what, the third time’s not the charm. Elliot Gould’s Reuben falls into a coma and the gang (sans Roberts) set out to rescue him from the evil Al Pacino and a cougar played by Ellen Barkin. Double dealings abound. Not much of a surprise in the film but some fun for b

Funny, offensive, dumb film in which Woody Harrelson plays a failed bowler and Randy Quaid plays an Amish bowler superstar. Bill Murray is great as the villain. Thank goodness it’s still ok to make fun of people with hooks and the Amish. The latter don’t go to movies

Good German film that chronicles the story and lives of the Comedian Harmonists from 1927-1934. Shows the impact of anti-Semitism on this popular, jazz-influenced singing group and German society. Though popular enough to even have some leading Nazis as fans, they did not get the real point of fascism until it was too late Well…

Funny, sly movie about a small-town Midwestern theater company doing a history of their town as a tribute. A really great look at their connection to the theater as an institution, and what it means in their lives. Fine stuff on the town’s refusal to accept and acknowledge their director’s gayness. Wonderful bits with Fred…

Good if weird Jim Jarmusch film about an accountant named William Blake from Cleveland who gets caught up in trouble and violence in the old west. Great first half, but a tad long. Still, see it. Fine Neil Young soundtrack

Funny, very French comedy about a knight and his peasant servant who travel in time and by accident, wind up in our present. Quite crude and funny. The peasant’s response is really quite rich. Very much the Sancho Panza without a silly Don Quixote. Not hysterical, but worth watching. Subtitles

Good monologue by the man who brought you “Swimming to Cambodia” and “Monster in a Box”. Interesting and funny/scary bit about his failing vision in his left eye and his efforts to find a cure. Everything from surgery to psychic surgery to sweathouses. Very interesting

Funny, well acted, creative look at a loser who becomes the hit of a 24/7 cable show, his life. Manipulated and real. Very funny. Nice work by Matthew McConaghy, Woody Harrellson, Cameron Diaz and lots of others. Check it out

Good piece on the death penalty with Susan Sarrandan and Sean Penn. The latter does an intense, fine job. Directed by Tim Robbins. Not great, but worth seeing, nonetheless. About the nun involved with the prisoner and his coming to redemption. I miss the wilder Sarrandan. She’s grown sooooooooo sincere. Bring back “Bull Durham” and…

George Clooney stars in this well done crime story about a lawyer whose primary job is to clean up the messes made by clients and others in the firm. He’s their “janitor”. Arthur Eadins (Tom Wilkinson) has gone off his medication and, finding clear evidence of his corporate clients’ guilt in the deaths of hundreds…

Good western about Wild Bill Hitchcock. Well-acted, interesting script

German documentary screened for Jewish Film Festival. Recounts the memories and feelings of German and Jewish women from Ulm, Germany, who get back together for the first time since WWII. Slow, 1 ½ hour film, it is interesting throughout, but drifts a great deal. No real climax except to find out that the leaders of…