Intriguing Murder Mystery, Brilliant Character Study: A Review of “12 Angry Men”
This 1957 black-and-white gem, director Sidney Lumet’s cinematic debut (he had worked for some years in television), has lost none of its riveting intensity in the half century since it first appeared on screen. The movie features, along with Henry … Read more →
Tarmac Meditations-New Years Part 2
"I hear America singing..." Walt Whitman. Equally, " I hear you singin' in the wires..." Jimmy Webb. I love the color of the fog this morning, the temperature of the light transforms morning in the valley into a sacred moment, a pause at the end … Read more →
Three Icons of American Cinema in 1967
Two seminal American films were released in 1967; each dealt with the issue of racism and each featured one of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time. Both were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture; one of them won the award. The … Read more →
Big Ego Chases American Dream: A Review of “The Pursuit of Happyness”
The DVD of this film was given to us as a gift by a departing homestay student; it was one of several movies he gave us, all of which he had seen and loved, and which he thought we would enjoy as well. The very large difference in age and character … Read more →
Nixon’s Final Humiliation: A Review of “Frost/Nixon”
As with Another Year in 2010, my favourite movie of 2008 was one that was for the most part overlooked, in this case Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon. In 1977 brash and ambitious British talk-show host David Frost (played by Michael Sheen) managed to … Read more →
The Bloody Road to Boredom: A Review of “Bonnie and Clyde”
Following the release of Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, Bosley Crowther, film critic of the New York Times for 27 years, wrote a short but devastating review. In it he called the movie “a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the … Read more →
A Delightful Christmas Chestnut: A Review of “A Christmas Carol”
Perhaps the greatest joy of the Christmas season for a young person lies in the delicious anticipation, in the events, rituals, traditions, and the sounds and smells that contribute to the build-up of excitement that peaks on Christmas morning. For … Read more →
A Life of Service, To An Empty Ideal: A Review of “The Remains of the Day”
I love the writing of British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. Of the several novels I have read, The Remains of the Day, the story of a blindly devoted English butler whose misguided loyalty to his profession and to his master have led to a wasted life, is … Read more →
A Romantic Journey to Truth: A Review of “Midnight in Paris”
I saw this Woody Allen movie twice this summer and was moved each time by the beautifully imagined and realized journeys into Paris of the 1920s and, more briefly, of La Belle Époque taken by the protagonist Gil Pender (played by Owen Wilson), a … Read more →
Bleak House of God: A Review of “True Confessions”
Here is what New York Times critic Vincent Camby wrote about True Confessions when the movie came out in September 1981: “Quite simply it's one of the most entertaining, most intelligent and most thoroughly satisfying commercial American films in a … Read more →
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