HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART I is a shocking surprise. It is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and the decision to turn the final book into two movies turns out to have been brilliant. What I at first thought was merely a greedy ploy to prolong the life expectancy of this cash cow [...]
I couldn't wait to see MORNING GLORY which promised a charming cast in a sweetly comic plot-- or so I thought. There's Rachel McAdams as the sprightly young morning TV show producer chock full of earnestness who has been hired to breathe life into a dead dog of a morning newscast. The warring anchors are [...]
I have not dropped off the face of the earth. I have been so swamped--just closed down mom's house in Connecticut and moved her up here. But have managed to see a bunch of things in recent days, and can share them briefly. MOVIES: THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST the third film adaptation [...]
Clint Eastwood, that long, lean, laconic cowboy of yesteryear, is thinking about death. In HEREAFTER he has crafted a movie that gently explores the subject of what lies beyond with soulful brevity and a flood of emotion; it begins with a violent tidal wave and ends in a wash of tenderness. Three stories gradually and [...]
(Secretariat winning the Triple Crown June 9,1973) I just saw SECRETARIAT. The horse deserved a better movie. You have to know I love Secretariat. I have articles about the horse written by the great Bill Nack under my bed. I know arcane little details about the greatest racehorse of all time-like he had a perfect [...]
I finally saw THE SOCIAL NETWORK--and kept saying to myself as I watched, why didn't I think of that??? Is it worth four stars? Maybe 3 1/2. Is it engrossing? Yes... especially the speed and acuteness of the dialogue, and the maniacal focus and narcissism of the protagonist, Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg(brilliantly embodied by Jesse [...]
It's #1 at the box office and deserves to be: THE TOWN--Ben Affleck's un-valentine to CharlesTOWN Massachusetts. Ben grew up right next door in Cambridge, but says it was a world apart; this movie proves him right. Based on the novel PRINCE OF THIEVES by Chuck Hogan, the film zeros in on one particular square [...]
WINTER'S BONE is one of the best films of the year. So many people have been saying there's nothing to see at the movies this summer. And if you're just patronizing your local mainstream multiplex, it's pretty bleak. But here's a quick run-down of better films you may have overlooked and you'll find them at [...]
"Eat Pray Love" is the latest incarnation of the archetypal female journey. It's the trip every woman wants to take. Unlike Ulysses whose journey requires him to fight all manner of monsters and physical obstacles in order to literally get "home," author Liz Gilbert's journey- a woman fleeing an unhappy marriage on a year-long sojourn [...]
"Schmuckin' funny" is the lead quote describing DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS, the American remake of a French film called "LE DINER DE CONS" which in 1998 was loosely translated as THE DINNER GAME. But by 2010, the translation has devolved to the offensive DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS -"schmuck" being Yiddish for "penis." So I guess we know [...]
