Category: Film Reviews

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…

Good work by the guy who plays the bouncer, Demi Moore’s great body, and Burt Reynolds having a good time as a sleazy senator can’t save this absolute turkey. She does have a great body though

Give Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chaz Palmentierri, Gary Shandling, Anna Paquin, and Meg Ryan a tight David Rabe script and watch them run. Paquin alone is too young and just not mature/sexual enough to pull it off, but it is a really interesting dark/humorous piece about LA movie coke-heads and their utter inability to sustain…

Good, depressing dark teen comedy[?] about a geeky jr high girl’s efforts to get by and be loved. Strong performances in this, with an over-the-top Jewish family as foil. Just like my days in grades 5-10. Very painful to watch

Good and strange film about the community of inbred Irish Gypsies (Romany) who prey on the greedy, gullible and unscrupulous who are always hunting for the deal that’s too good to be true. Nicely acted, strange bit on these North Carolina folk with their own language, who marry women age 12 and up, and who…

Good, if a tad long, mob movie with Johnnie Depp as an undercover FBI guy, and a great job by Al Pacino as a dumb mobster. Good film

Good and well meaning, if predictable, Ken Loach film about janitors organizing a union in LA It’s a good palliative to these anti-union, anti-immigrant, anti-worker times, but in the end, its still pretty tame. Nicely acted and fun. Postscript:. Funny, I used this movie in my Labor History class in 2002 and it evoked incredibly…

Good, if not entirely accurate, presentation of the life of David Helfgott, the schizophrenic Australian pianist. Well played and acted, it suggests his illness is due to his father’s cruelty, not chemical imbalance. Interesting, though, and moving in its way.

Good but not great film by the guy who did “Clerks” about a relationship between three cartoonists. The focus is the one between the straight guy and the lesbian cartoonist. Funny and very quick, especially through the first 2/3 but then becomes a bit slow. I found his unwillingness to accept her racy past unrealistic…

Good, if overblown drama about a brilliant working-class man who is a janitor at MIT. Well acted, but I found myself getting angry at the academia-bashing. Minnie Driver is wasted. Robin Williams as working-class Irish shrink is a caricature as are most of the academics. Touts working-class machismo as real masculinity, if warped by violence….

Fun Japanese girl-band movie. When a high school band’s guitarist gets hurt, the three girls in the band need a fourth, a lead singer. They select (at random) a Korean exchange student with limited Japanese. This is a wonderful film about teen life in Japan. There are no parents (well, mom makes a birthday cake…

Good but sentimental English. political flick about coal pit shutdowns in the Tory era of John Major. Well acted male weepie, (I’d rate it three red hankies), but lots of fun about a British coal town workers’ brass band and the struggle to resist a shutdown of the pit. A comic drama about the social…

Good, if overly long, Gillian Armstrong look at the relationship between an Australian woman owner of a glass factory (Kate Blanchett) and a young English preacher (Ralph Finnes). Both are obsessive gamblers. Beautiful cinematography, wonderful acting (especially by Fiennes who has, by far, the better role). A most interesting film. Weirdness on lugging a glass…

Fun look at the abortion issue with Laura Dern and a fine cast. It suggests that both the pro and anti-abortion forces are basically the same in their attitude and tactics. Funny and horrifying in part. Dern is a great doper loser shown in all her glory. Good work by lots of folks including Burt…

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…