Lawyers cutting back door deals. Let’s face it – Tom Hanks probably caught AIDS at that BACHELOR PARTY. In PHILADELPHIA, Hanks is Andrew Beckett, a young gay lawyer (not pejoratively, as in “all lawyers are gay” – literally). His life is good; his law firm entrusts him with a primo case and brings him into the bigwig fold of Conservative … Read More
CASABLANCA
We’ll Always Have Overacting. Leonard Maltin calls CASABLANCA “The best Hollywood movie of all time”; it won the 1943 Best Picture Oscar; voted #2 film of all time by the American Film Institute; Roger Ebert effuses, “Casablanca is THE movie”; it boasts one of the most regal Hollywood stars in Ingrid Bergman (in the movie that would catapult her to … Read More
THE QUEEN
SexyRegal is the new Streep. Regal AND sexy. Only Helen Mirren could pull that off… Mirren is THE QUEEN. Inhabiting the role of Elizabeth II like she was born into the English monarchy, giving the old biddy some reg’lr ole toughness, independence and spunk, at one point reminding her aides that she was a mechanic during The War. THE QUEEN … Read More
PURPLE RAIN
Hendrix’s Purple Phoenix Writ Large. The soul of Hendrix – and then some. And then some more. Dearly beloved, I give you: Prince Rogers Nelson, passion bleeding every note, saturating every choreographed gesture, purple feather boa and avant garde guitar, high on the genius of esoteric creation… PURPLE RAIN, at the time of its release, was Prince’s THE SONG REMAINS … Read More
JUNO
Verging on Virgin-on-Virgin. I know that JUNO was a big hit with the pedophiles and sweaty-mouthed goons trying to catch a glimpse of sugartit, but I just have to get this off my flat green chest: Sorry Jason Reitman (director) and Diablo Cody (writer), but this movie doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Are you trying to purvey the underage pregnant … Read More
UP
Two Thumbs UP. The madmen at Pixar once again prove themselves the best storytellers on the planet. Or off it. UP is a unique animated adventure that follows crusty retiree Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), as he uses thousands of air balloons to try to float his house to his dream location. Another humbling display of Pixar’s incredible grasp of … Read More
SPEED
Driving Miss Dazey. Play the drinking game to this movie, for every time you hear the words, “Hang on!” You’ll end up drunker than Lindsey Lohan. SPEED – an action movie that delivers a thrill a minute, almost as often as you have to take a drink – arguably put Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves and director Jan de Bont on … Read More
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Gloriously Bastardly. Quentin Tarantino loves cinema. Even the characters in his movies talk cinema. And the ones who aren’t talking cinema still seem to realize they’re in a damn fine piece of it. And the major plot point of Tarantino’s latest cinematic masterpiece, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, revolves around the screening of a movie! Tarantino knows cinema so intimately, he smashes a … Read More
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
When Wizards Collide. Gandalf is SUCH a badass! Wizard against Balrog in a film opening so power-hammering it is astonishing that writer-director Peter Jackson didn’t score a cross-promotion rollercoaster ride at Universal Studios called The Falling Balrog. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS opens at the middle of the last film, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001), as … Read More
AVATAR
Electra Glide in Jungle Cat Blue. For the protection of the good, for destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age. — Lord Krishna, avatar of Vishnu, The Bhagavad-Gita. Forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those Who trespass against us… — Yeshua, avatar of Elohim, The Lord’s Prayer. Hubris. Conquest. … Read More
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
To Live and Die in Americana. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD opens with a female narrator describing the small town she was raised in, her poetic drawl and the lilt of her language dropping us smack in 1933 Alabammy – “recently told we had nothing to fear but fear itself” – just after the crash heralding the Great Depression; you know, … Read More
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
Fall of the Imperial Presidency. Watergate. Conspiracy. Burglary. Perjury. Courtesy of the 37th President of the United States. Over the years, I’ve called Richard Milhous Nixon a “hellspawn from Satan’s own vagina”… and I see no reason to stop. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is a powerful recount of specifically one event in Satan’s Vagina’s presidency that would define not just … Read More
CHARIOTS OF FIRE
The Race Between Religion and Spirit. Ah yes, running in slow motion. We’ve all done it. To Vangelis’s music from CHARIOTS OF FIRE. British production, written by Colin Welland, directed by Hugh Hudson, nominated for 7 Academy Awards, winning 4 (including Best Picture), CHARIOTS OF FIRE is based loosely on two real life British runners in the 1924 Paris Olympics, … Read More
MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
Pure as the driven ho. Politicians are whores. This we know to be fact. So what makes anyone think the idealistic Mr. Smith in MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON would not buckle at the knees and subscribe to the corruption inherent in the system, were his career drawn out long enough? Alan Grayson, the real life Democratic Florida senator in … Read More
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
A man-size Jack in a girl-size film. Saw this movie at the cinema with a male friend. We were two men – men who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. And AS GOOD AS IT GETS blindsided us. The marketing was smart. Yes, Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson were probably going to end … Read More
PAN’S LABYRINTH
A wondrously grim fairy tale. PAN’S LABYRINTH is a fairy tale, but it’s not for kids. Ironically, the fairy tales that are for kids are as dark as this tale. Set in the lush woodlands of 1944 Spain, during the waning of WWII, young bookworm Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) move into an army barracks with … Read More
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER
Still Racist After All These Years… I’m not racist – I have a black president. — Dane Cook, Isolated Incident, 2009. Affluent, white, liberal, San Franciscan parents, Matt and Christina Drayton (Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) are stunned when their free-spirited daughter, Joanna (Katharine Houghton), returns from her holiday abroad, bringing home a “negro,” Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), whom … Read More
GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT
Not very gentlemanly… In researching an investigative piece on anti-Semitism for his New York newspaper, Phil Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck) hits on the idea to go deep undercover and pretend to be Jewish; to live in Jewish skin and report how society reacts to him. His scheme goes all too well, as he is dis-invited to certain parties, loses work, … Read More
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Youth is wasted on the Pitt. For the longest time, I held off on watching this movie because I thought it would be as depressing as rain on a Monday morning. I was wrong. It’s worse; like seeing police lights in your rearview mirror, like finding your lover in bed with someone else, like watching an AMERICAN IDOL winner attempt … Read More
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
The Lyin,’ the Snitch and the Whored Road. Four bloodless, pasty-white British kids on an adventure in a magical wardrobe. When I was 13, I loved the C.S. Lewis book so madly that I forced my mother to read it on the train on her way to work every day. Fast forward thirty years, I knew the film version of … Read More