Village Vidiot

A friend’s son works in a theater part-time and got him and me in free to see this silly and fun vanity piece from Tom Cruise. The plot doesn’t matter at all. It’s all stunts, technology, bloodless violence, explosions, hot bodies and cars A trivial, fun night of visuals and chaos if that’s ok with…

A fine, troubling, beautifully acted look at a dramatically flawed true believer of a man played magnificently by Robert Duvall at his absolute best. Great piece of film. Deals with disturbing stuff. Also the sense of scripted, believable fraud. A truly fine film. See this one!

A film which, despite its flaws, is well worth watching for its presentation of one of the key events of the Civil Rights movement. It’s 1965 and, according to the film, LBJ (Tom Wilkinson in one of the few roles I’ve not liked him in) is foot-dragging horribly, even maliciously, on the Civil Rights bill….

A 1997 film from Steven Spielberg, this one about the rebellion at sea of blacks bound for slavery. Their trial in the US followed. A well acted study, if not always historically accurate. I really liked Anthony Hopkins as J Q Adams. Exciting to watch and morally satisfying and edifying

240,000 (!) people died in the terrible 1976 Tangshan earthquake. I did not even know it happened. This narrative follows the experiences of one family where the father is killed and the mother must decide which of her twin children she must rescue. She chooses her son and lives with the horrible guilt forever after….

2011 Oscar winner for best foreign language film and a remarkable study of culture, gender, religion, identity and the meanings of love and truth. This superbly written, directed, and acted film chronicles the breakup of a youngish married couple caught in so many of the traumas of life anywhere: parents with Alzheimers, what about the…

1999 remake of old 60s caper flick, this one with Pierce Brosnan as Crown and Rene Russo as Catherine Banning. There is NO chemistry between Brosnan and Russo although she looks very good without her clothes on. Dennis Leary is good as the cop. Crown is very rich and steals for fun and to own…

1949 Japanese noir from Akira Kurosawa. Detective, former soldier Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his pocket picked on a bus during a brutally hot drought in immediate post-war Japan. His gun is stolen and he frantically sets out to retrieve it. He becomes increasingly despairing as the gun figures in several violent crimes. He teams up…

1944 loose, Fritz Lang directed version of Graham Greene novel (according to film historian remarks included as a feature, GG did not like the adaptation). Ray Milland stars as a man released from a mental asylum after serving two years for having killed his wife. He goes to a country fair before taking the train…

“The Devil’s Backbone” 8 May 2010, DVD. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Mexican, “Pan’s Labyrinth”) and produced by the Almodovar brothers, this political Spanish ghost story is set in the final days of the Spanish Civil War. A boy’s school for the orphans of the war (Republican only) is haunted by the spirit of one…

Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown”. Whoops, no its not but the resemblance of this 2010 Polanski mystery/thriller to his 1974 classic detective mystery/thriller is palpable. The apolitical Ghost (Ewan McGregor) wins the assignment to help a former Brit PM (Pierce Brosnan, charismatic and soulless as the Blair-like official) write his memoir after the first ghost…

I liked this based on a true story, Disney-sanitized Civil Rights story of the struggle against oppression by three African-American women at NASA in Virginia during the early 1960s. Their triumphs speak to both the movement for change and the moment of struggle that encouraged them to reject and challenge societal constraints. Starring Taraji Henson,…

I liked this 2010 documentary that follows Rivers, who died just a few weeks ago, through her many gigs, her obsessive need to be seen as being on top, her relationship with her daughter Melissa, the end of her relationship with her manager of 35 years,. and her failed one woman stage show. But she…

[Warning, spoilers included]. They’re back. I mean the nasty aliens are back to try to destroy the world again. That’s too bad, because they’ve brought with them a really bad movie. Its 20 years after the first invasion, the world’s at peace and more technologically sophisticated thanks to the technology reverse engineered from the earlier…

  “Ant-Man,” August 14, 2018 (2015), TV.  Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a thief working with a crew of bumblers led by Luis (the very talented Michael Peña) becomes Ant-Man in another fine Marvel Comic feature.  It’s got good tone, humor, and action without the stupidity of magic or religion.  It’s the science that does it. …

“Mission Impossible: Fallout,” August 10, 2018, theater.   First, I’ve never been a fan of this franchise I went to see it because several reviewers I like really enjoyed this one The action sequences are excellent and, given that Cruise is Chan-like and does his own gags, are really quite impressive The plot is, from a…

“Isle of Dogs,” (2018) August 4, 2018, DVD at home. Bronwen really wanted to see this Wes Anderson animated bi-lingual piece about canine oppression in a Japanese prefecture, the dogs removal to trash island by an evil prefecture after they develop a disease, and the dogs culture on the island.  She liked it and found…

“Three Identical Strangers,” (2018) July 27, 2018, theater. Bronwen really wanted to see this Wes Anderson animated bi-lingual piece about canine oppression in a Japanese prefecture, the dogs removal to trash island by an evil prefecture after they develop a disease, and the dogs culture on the island. She liked it and found it funny….

    “Three Identical Strangers,” (2018) July 27, 2018, theater.  This deeply affecting documentary chronicles the story behind a story. In 1980, three adopted young men, all from Jewish families, accidentally discovered that they were triplets, separated and adopted by three very different families, at birth. What follows is their joyous reunion, their early acclaim…

“Three Identical Strangers,” (2018) July 27, 2018, theater.  This deeply affecting documentary chronicles the story behind a story.  In 1980, three adopted young men, all from Jewish families, accidentally discovered that they were triplets, separated and adopted by three very different families, at birth.   What follows is their joyous reunion, their early acclaim and momentary…

    “Sorry to Bother You,” July 22, 2018, theater.  I really enjoyed, frequently laughed out loud, and was also more than a little disturbed by this wacky Boots Riley vehicle. He wrote and directed.   He’s the frontman for The Coup, a radical hip hop band that’s influenced by folks like George Clinton.   I play…

“Shrek II,” July 15,  2004, theater.  Myers, Murphy, and Diaz are back as Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona in this fun sequel. Not quite as good as the original, but less pitched to the kids also. More grown-up and it loses something in that.

   “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” July 15, 2018, theater.  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…

  “Solo,”  July 13, 2018, theater.    This “Star Wars” series, Ron Howard directed, Lawrence and Jonathan Kasden written, prequel gives us Han’s backstory following him from street thief to pilot and good guy criminal. Raised in privation, he (Landen Ehrenreich) flees and joins the imperial military before hooking up with criminal freebooters (led by…

    “Solo,” (2018) July 13, 2018, theater.  This “Star Wars” series, Ron Howard directed, Lawrence and Jonathan Kasden written, prequel gives us Han’s backstory following him from street thief to pilot and good guy criminal.  Raised in privation, he (Landen Ehrenreich) flees and joins the imperial military before hooking up with criminal freebooters (led…