Just Wright (2010)

Just Wright (2010) – How did Queen Latifah get that scar? Is it common knowledge?… She’s 40+ playing a realistic 35. Makeup! She’s another entry on the long list of women working after 40 (along with Pam Grier in the movie), once a rarity, now a commonplace… Common, btw, plays an NBA all-star. The cameraman [...]

You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

You know how directors film Tom Cruise and Pacino and other short guys so that they seem of normal height? Jimmy Stewart was 6′ 3″ and Jean Arthur was 5′ 3″ and in You Can’t Take It with You (1938), Stewart looks like he could dribble Arthur down the court if he wanted to. Did [...]

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

I like to go to plays. Not Broadway extravaganzas, but community and university theater productions. Unfortunately, my spouse doesn’t share this interest, which cuts back on my dramatical attendance, except when our daughter comes home for a visit. Fortunately, stage plays find their way onto the silver screen, and found their way to it even [...]

My Favorite Brunette (1947)

Bob Hope was 44 when he made My Favorite Brunette (1947). He lived to be 100, which gave him plenty of time to get old and then older and then move into “Wow. Is he still alive?” territory. Sort of like Woody Allen, only worse. Bob Hope, money-making canny real estate investor. Bob Hope, going [...]

Caro Diario (Dear Diary) (1993)

dear diary, i just watched a movie that has your italian cousin caro diario in it. now don’t be jealous that caro diario appears in a big old color movie, whereas you’re just a little bitty blog diary. don’t be jealous that nanni moretti puts his little diary up on the big screen and and [...]

The Invention of Lying (2009). I liked it. What does that prove?

I was on Ricky Gervais’ wavelength from frame one to fadeout of this film. I laughed when I was meant to laugh, I teared up when cued by the score. I sat imagining a movie starring Jennifer Garner and Hilary Swank playing sisters, but that’s just a jaw thing. I enjoyed the movie. When it [...]

Homo Erectus (2007)

aka National Lampoon’s Stoned Age. NL has produced a closetful of clunkers over the years, but Adam Rifkin gets this genre film right, the genre being Movies To Watch While You’re Drunk. I was and it was. It’s all here: David Carradine as MooKoo, proving once again that he will do literally anything for a [...]

Music and Lyrics (2007)

Age is adding a touch of gravitas to Hugh Grant. His good looks, which have limited him throughout his career, are fraying in the same good way that Pacino’s did when his bloom wore off. Grant is no Pacino, but looking at him now I can understand how he got caught in a car with [...]

Tillsammans (Together) (2000)

Tillsammans is a well-made sorta-comic sorta-serious feelgood ensemble drama about a communish collective located in a Swedish suburb in 1975. The collective, Tillsammans (Together), includes your couple experimenting with an open relationship in a building with thin walls, your newly-minted lesbian, your gay man, some unhappy kids, a woman taking refuge from her abusive husband, [...]