Saturday, December 9, 2017
Lakeview Terrace (2008)
A LAPD officer will stop at nothing to force out the interracial couple who just moved in next door.
Basically a bad neighbor thriller, there's a subtext of racial tension that irritates; Samuel Jackson L. Jackson as the villain easily steals the show.
Maltin**1/2: "Provocative and well-acted, but film's constantly shifting sympathies make it difficult to know what the point is supposed to be."
Friday, December 8, 2017
New York
Martha Cooper. Untitled photograph from Street Play Series, Lower East Side, New York City, c.1978
First Lines: Olaf Stapledon - Odd John
When I told John that I intended to write his biography, he laughed.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
The Ice Harvest (2005)
A shady lawyer attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money, but his partner, a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.
Somnambulant - and humorless - heist thriller takes its time till it reveals that it actually does have a plot; good cast is hardly faced with any challenge.
Maltin**: "Mostly unfunny black comedy must have worked better on the pages of Scott Phillip's novel..."
Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone (1955)
Bewildered, Don Camillo learns that Peppone intends to stand for parliament.
Still entertaining as before, although the plot is broken down into episodes.
On renewed viewing: Always mildly entertaining.
Halliwell *: "Pleasant third collection of encounters with familiar characters."
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
First Lines: Robert E. Howard - Conan the Conqueror
The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled.
Nightcrawler (2014)
When a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
The story has been told before (Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole comes to mind), but Jake Gyllenhaal's portrayal of a soulless reporter adds a whole dimension of frightening demonical possession.
