Great Movies
Features
The Films of Cocaine Noir
It might have been morning in America, but it was permanently midnight in these films.
It might have been morning in America, but it was permanently midnight in these films.
A tribute to Debra Winger, on the occasion of her first leading role in over 20 years in this week's "The Lovers."
An appreciation of Richard Lester as a retrospective of his work is about to unfold in New York City.
Rarely does a TV show arrive with lower expectations than the annual Emmy Awards telecast. It's a given that the thing will suck. Even so, this year's -- the 64th -- managed to come up short and disappoint. And it wasn't one of those "so bad it's good" campy things you can enjoy making fun of, either. It was more like one of those "so bad it's lousy" things that leave you incredulous and drained of the will to live.
Marie writes: Gone fishing...aka: in the past 48 hrs, Movable Type was down so I couldn't work, my friend Siri came over with belated birthday presents, and I built a custom mesh screen for my kitchen window in advance of expected hot weather. So this week's Newsletter is a bit lighter than usual.
There are a few spoilers here. Because I am mentioning that there are spoilers, I am implying that there are things you do not want to know in advance, thus making you curious, thus lifting your expectations higher than they should be, thus making it harder for you to enjoy the film. So, enter at your own risk.
Occasionally I receive a paper from a student that is so outstanding in content and ideas, that in grading it I am compelled to overlook the shortcomings in argument, style and polish. Such is my experience with Christopher Nolan's "Inception." This movie is very ambitious, not only in the ideas it explores, but also in the expectations it has of its audience. In my estimation, having watched the film on a giant screen with a packed theater of cheering, laughing, and groaning moviegoers at a popular suburban multiplex, it fulfills its ambitions of big-budget intelligent storytelling.
Dear Club Members;When last I heard, the Grand Poobah was dashing out the door to catch a flight to Cannes, France. One can assume the plane landed safely as he's still Tweeting. :-)
In the Answer Man column for July 12, reader David J. Bondelevitch wrote: "I had to bite my tongue from laughing when Sam Neill's character showed up in Montana near the end of 'The Horse Whisperer.' I kept thinking he had fulfilled his dying plea from 'The Hunt for Red October.' After being shot, Sam Neill's dying words in 'Hunt' were (in a thick Russian accent): 'I would like to have seen Montana.' "
BELEM, Brazil The speedboat came churning too close to the big barge holding the lights and camera, and everyone could see what was going to happen. The wake slapped against the barge and rocked it, and the tall scaffolding swayed back and forth. And then slowly, with an expensive majesty, the $18,000 light toppled over and sank to the bottom of the Amazon.
HOLLYWOOD - When he was asked to play the Sundance Kid in "Butch and Sundance: The Early Days," William Katt knew there was one thing he did not want to do. He did not want to see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." He hadn't seen it when it came out in 1969, and he wasn't going to see it now: "I must have been doing something else in 1969. And now if I wanted to play Sundance, I wanted to be free to go at it without preconceptions, without the Robert Redford performance in my head."
