The Reader 12.30.08

The two women in front of me in line were each buying tickets to two films, The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire. I was bracketed by ticket buyers for the seniors only showing of Slumdog Millionaire two weeks ago when I went to see The Day the Earth Stood Still. Now I was behind two ladies discussing the qualifications for senior status with the college student behind the window. The third member of their group ran up and breathlessly explained ... more

Frost/Nixon 12.27.08

One of the great storytellers of his generation, Ron Howard can have you perched on the edge of your seat in anticipation or sinking in a cringe of dread even when he is retelling a story you thought you knew. His film of the Apollo 13 odyssey set the bar for dramatic recreation ... more

Let the Right One In 12.23.08

We likely have Ann Rice to thank for the current revival of the vampire genre with her paen to New Orleans' Garden District and the vampires who therein reside. Two of her vampire novels, Interview With a Vampire and The Vampire Lestat, made it the big screen. The more ambitious The Witching Hour, is still best and fortunately only enjoyed in text mode. Her tribute to the Garden District architecture is unparalelled in its descritive power (from Inteview With a Vampire I recall) and she can, on occassion, pen a profoundly frightening passage - a nightime bedroom moment made me stop reading out of sheer terror... more

Tell No One 10.04.08

Suspense thrillers. An under-appreciated genre. Hitchcock did them so much better than anyone else he relegated the rest to a second-class of relative obscurity from which only a few rise to the level of art. Or maybe it's the mechanical nature of their plot development that makes the suspense thriller so prone to disrespect. Characters are secondary in the suspense thriller, it's the who-done-it or when-will-it-be-done or to-whom-will-it-be-done that dominates. They don't have to be second class, though, and in the rare film ... more

Slumdog Millionaire 12.21.08

I was explaining Slumdog to a friend at dinner last night and he asked if people broke out in song during the film. A reference to Bollywood, the Indian film industry that features morality plays disguised as 1950's musicals. Slumdog is more Hollywood than Bollywood and gives us an unsparingly painful look at life in Mumbai's great slum. A slumdog is a resident and the millionaire suffix is in reference to India's version of Regis ... more

Quantum of Solace 11.14.08

Either this is what happens when one ages or this is a profoundly flawed film. I often have trouble understanding dialogue these days. Thanks to the digital recording device on the television I can up the volume and replay until I either get it or tire of the effort. I do it often enough that I think to it in the movie theater, even the concert hall. Occasionally I imagine using it in dinner conversation...more

Milk 12.19.08

Anita Bryant extended the fifteen minutes she was awarded by the Miss America pageant by waging war on gays and lesbians. Supporting poisonous propositions to validate marginalization based on sexual preference, she was regularly featured on the nightly news extolling the virtue of male on female sex and warning of the dangers of any variation. The media, in their usually misguided effort to present "both sides" of a story, gave her pretty face plenty of time and alternated with the most outrageous drag queens available. The general public was presented a "balanced" ... more

Rachel Getting Married 10.18.08

Anne Hathaway charmed us in The Princess Diaries, worried us when she signed on for its sequel, gave us a hint of her depth in Brokeback Mountain, held her own with Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada and assumes her position in the first tier with her portrayal of a dark and desperate Kym in Rachel Getting Married. I just sat back down after turning down the...more