Category: Film Reviews

Bronwen and I both enjoyed this somewhat predictable Clint Eastwood-directed and star vehicle (he says it will be his last bit of acting) about a 70+ former autoworker/Korean War veteran, Walt Kowalski, whose wife has died, whose neighborhood has gone immigrant, and whose country has changed. All he has left is his mint 1972 Gran…

Bronwen liked this Japanese comedy more than I did; it really made her laugh out loud. A wimpy rental car clerk has an accident because his boss is baiting him. He runs into a car owned by a Yakuza and is forced to go to their headquarters. It explodes and he winds up going to…

Darker and more interesting in some ways, this is nonetheless less satisfying than the two earlier and sweeter pieces. Certain elements don’t hang together unless you’ve read all the books (which I have) and the film is choppier and less complete that the others. Why, for example, does he conjure his father’s stage image?. In…

Bronwen and I both just tolerated this light romantic comedy with so many untenable elements in it. Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are both ok, although I am just sick of movies about rich people in the theater/movie/music/advertising world. Don’t these folks know any normal people?. A few very funny scenes, a nude scene by…

Bronwen really hated this funny homage/satire of Vietnam War films with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConahey, and a bizarre and wonderful bit of work from Tom Cruise (who I usually hate). A film crew of imploding stars go to Viet Nam to make a film about the war. Very…

Darn, old age really sucks. Here’s our more recent viewing

Bronwen and I both liked this painful yet straightforward story of Vera Drake, a straightforward working-class woman of 1950 who, for 20 years, ‘helped girls out’ of a pregnancy out of an understanding that they did not want to have a child, or with married women, more children. It’s not hard to get, but it…

Bronwen usually hates movies like this and she only went to it with me in the theater as a ‘favor’. Imagine my surprise when we both really enjoyed this very well-written, witty, well-made, sometimes visually stunning, curious sci-fi Marvel Comic treat. Well-acted by all, Paul Rudd reprises his role as Scott Lang, Ant-Man, enduring the…

David Mamet conceit about a successful coverup of a sexual groping by the President. DeNiro and Hoffman are wonderful, but the film bored Bronwen, and I found it smug and, despite its tight 96 minutes, overly long. It breaks down, especially when Woody Harrelson makes his appearance as a moronic psychopath soon-to-be hero. But oh…

Bronwen and I both liked this sad and well written boxing movie produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. A strangely loving and kind film about a horribly violent world populated by unusual men and women. It stars Eastwood and Hillary Swenk as a boxing manager and a woman fighter. This one won the Oscar for…

Bronwen wanted this Sandra Bullock film for Chanukah and we obliged. A pretty lame story (you know its lame when Betty White is the best thing in the movie!) about a harridan editor who is going to be deported to Canada and fakes a marriage to her assistant.

Bronwen and I both really enjoyed this well-made Charles Kaufmann look at a man (Jim Carey) who decides to have unpleasant memories of a relationship removed via a new process. (It won the Oscar for best original sceenplay a month after we saw it). Kirsten Dundst is in this as well. Some parts don’t fit…

Bronwen went to a sister city meeting for a project she wants to work on in Nicaragua so I went to the movies and saw this excellent, humane film about the inhumane role of the Stassi in East German life. A Stassi loyalist leads a surveillance of a playwright and his actress wife with orders…

Bronwen and I both really liked seeing this 1991 Chinese drama about a blind banjo player and his blind apprentice again. The master believes he will regain his sight when he breaks his 1,000th string. Hoping against hope, he moves forward with increasing intensity and desperation. Known as a saint, he resolves conflicts among clans,…

Bronwen, Bronwen, and I all liked this shift from the book to the movie about the young wizard who goes to school at Hogwarts Acadamy. Fun special effects and scary too. Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith are marvelous as teachers at the school, and everyone is really first rate. A fun story for all full…

Bronwen and I both really liked the acting in this French film starring Kristen Scott Thomas as a former prisoner released into the world after serving 15 years for killing her son. Wonderful acting by Thomas and all the principals and with a specially moving bit of work by Frederick Pierrot as the police parole…

Burt Munro (Anthony Hopkins), New Zealander extraordinaire, rebuilt his 1920 Indian again and again, racing it and turning it into the world’s fastest street bike under 1000 cc. With the help of his friends and the many weird and wonderful Americans he meets along the way, he’s able to race at Bonneville and sets a…

Bronwen and I both really liked this Gus Van Zant biopic starring Sean Penn as the charismatic gay SF supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone. In his one year in office as the first elected out gay male official in the country, he helped transform the nation and his view of the…

Captivating, non-linear romantic drama from Spanish filmmaker Julio Medem. Presented in the voice and vision of a boy (Otto) and girl (Ana). Their star-crossed love is joined to the comings, goings, and car crashes in the lives of their parents. Most critics found this too melodramatic (Jay Carr in the Globe actually liked it a…

Bronwen and I both really liked this, Tom McCarthy’s second movie. His first, “The Station Agent,” was excellent. Once you get beyond the conceit of the situation, this is a stellar drama with fine acting and deeply humane plot-lines. Walter, an economics professor played superbly by Richard Jenkins who was nominated for an Oscar for…

Cheryl loaned us this fine film about a woman (Halle Berry) whose husband Brian (David Duchovny) is tragically murdered. She’s left with two kids (both precocious, one of them is Berry’s son) and establishes a relationship with Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), Brian’s best and oldest friend and a very wacked out former-lawyer become heroin addict….

Bronwen and I liked this documentary about Al-Jezeera, the Arab satellite tv station that has so much audience in the Middle East and the Arab community in the US. It is both supportive and critical, acknowledging the bias of these Arab journalists (their despair and confusion on the fall of Baghdad is palpable) and the…

Children’s flick based on the book. Classic story of child with horrible parents, saved by wonderful teacher (Miss Honey) who she in turn saves as well from her wretched aunt/principal. Nicest work by Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman (he produced as well) as the awful parents. Fun to start, but the stress on her goodness…

Bronwen and I liked this look at this film by and in part about Zana Briski as she worked with the children of prostitutes, alcoholics, addicts, etc in Calcutta’s red light district. She taught a group of them photography and then used their photos (many of them very good and very beautiful) to help get…

Choppy but almost too complete and strangely flat historical drama about the life of Martin Luther (Joseph Finnes). Most critics really liked this 2003 production and it caused a religious war on IMDB, but I still went unmoved. Stellar work by Peter Ustinov as the prince of Wittenburg who protects him and goes along with…