Here are a few things I learned from the film Baywatch: Movies adapted from television programs are almost always terrible (the few exceptions are “The Brady Bunch Movie” and the “Mission: Impossible” franchise; this also includes most films based on “Saturday Night Live” sketches); moronic writers who cannot think of clever lines or situations always…
“We are not lost, we are just finding our way” — Stephen Meek, “Meek’s Cutoff” As depicted in “Wendy and Lucy” and “Meek’s Cutoff,” Kelly Reichardt’s characters are lost without a significant guidepost to hold on to, adrift in a society in which they struggle to fit in. Based on short stories from the 2009…
London. One of the nerve centers of world government. Home of the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. Home of black cabs and the Tube. Home to a thousand nationalities and one of the most cosmopolitan metropolises in the world. Home of the elastic ruler, the clockwork lamppost and the inflatable knitting…
I’m spending more time than I should trying to guess if the many vagina jokes in Amy Schumer’s sophomore effort are the reason for its title, Snatched, or not. I’m leaning towards a “yes” because using a double entendre is clever, lots of vagina jokes are funny — at least that’s what Ms. Schumer wants…
Here it is, the comeback the “Alien” franchise sorely needed. “Nothing,” remarked Daniels (Katherine Waterston, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”) on the noise level of her surroundings, a gorgeous planet seemingly teeming with conditions perfect for them, 2,000 in-cryosleep passengers and 1,000-plus embryos to colonize. Little does the character know this, but what…
In Israeli-American director Joseph Cedar’s masterful film, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes given as a gift leads to a friendship between rising Israeli politician Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi, “Encirclements”) and Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere, “Time Out of Mind”), an American businessman, consultant…
“. . . You can’t handcuff the wind, If you try you’re gonna fail It’s like trying to put thunder in jail . . .” So sings Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt, “ABCs of Death 2”) who experienced a moment of fame in the late eighties, playing Bruce P. Mindhorn, “the best plain-clothes detective the Isle…
