ph: Cass Bird
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Friday, March 24, 2017
First Lines: Redmond O'Hanlon - In Trouble Again
Having spent two months travelling in the primary rain forests of Borneo, a four-month journey in the country between the Orinoco and the Amazon would pose, I thought, no particular problem.
Le tout nouveau testament (2015)
God lives in human form as a cynical writer with his young opinionated daughter in present-day Brussels, Belgium, but she concludes that her dad is doing a terrible job and decides to rewrite the world, which leaves God angry, powerless and adamant to get his power back.
Idiosyncratic and superficially blasphemous satire presents a fantastical parable which works on several levels and manages to entertain and endear at the same time.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Out of Time (2003)
A Florida police chief must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion.
Suspenseful crime thriller with an impossibly construed plot that it's only credulity by Denzel Washington's performance of a corrupt cop we're supposed to like.
Halliwell (no star): "Unoriginal thriller, given a classier treatment than it merits."
Maltin**: "This film noir wannabe would have been made effortlessly in the 1940 and '50s but seems heavy-handed and overly contrived here. Lathan is a fine femme fatale but Washington is the last person you's cast as a patsy."
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Monday, March 20, 2017
First Lines: Sven Hedin - My Life as an Explorer
Happy is the boy who discovers the bent of his life-work during childhood.
Pot o' Gold (1941)
The owner of a failed music shop, goes to work with his uncle, the owner of a food factory, and as he gets there, he befriends an Irish family who happens to be his uncle's worst enemy because of their love for music and in-house band who constantly practices.
Likeable lively, but rather simple-minded comedy romance entertains, but is marred by - too much music!
Halliwell (no star): "Thin Capraesque comedy which needed more determined handling."
Maltin**: "Very minor item...Stewart called this his worst movie!"
RoboCop (2014)
In 2028 Detroit, when a man - a loving husband, father and good cop - is critically injured in the line of duty, the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer.
Not bad as a well-made sci-fi actioner, but lacking any of the original's biting satire and humor.
Maltin**: "Slick but hollow remake...Brazilian director Padilha's U.S. debut confirms that he can stage action scenes, but someone should have improved the superficial and humorless screenplay."
Sunday, March 19, 2017
New York
Midnight Train to Georgia 1942 A group of African American women waiting for their trains at the Pennsylvania railroad station, New York City, 1942
First Lines: John Muir - My First Summer in the Sierra
In the great Central Valley of California there are only two seasons - spring and summer.