Flowers wilt. Candy endangers the waistline. Jewelry endangers the credit card. But a good romantic movie can make for a world-class Valentine’s Day. Choosing the right Valentine’s movie is an art, however. Every taste must be taken into account, of course, but so must the danger of over-familiarity. Few would question that, say, Casablanca or [...]
One of the signs that you’re a true movie star may be when you get cast in a classic role for which you seem completely wrong. Not many actors strike me as less obviously appropriate for the title role in The Green Hornet than Seth Rogen, the nerdy, laid-back, highly un-glamorous star of Knocked Up. [...]
At this writing I still haven’t seen Harry Potter and the Receding Hairline, or whatever this one is called. But I did get to attend a demonstration of the latest technological marvel by which that film can be experienced, by 26 people per show in Scottsdale, that is. The new UltraStar Cinema opened last month, [...]
Runaway locomotives have a long and noble history in movies, and I’ve been a fan at least since the TV movie Runaway! back in 1973. Since then, I’ve enjoyed the premise in films ranging from Silver Streak to Speed to Andrey Konchalovsky’s bizarre 1985 thriller titled, simply, Runaway Train. Along with being lost in the [...]
October at last! It’s my favorite month in the Valley because it’s the one in which summer begins to give up her stubbornness, and my favorite month anywhere because it’s the month of Halloween. So if you want a scary movie to start your Autumn revels, you might consider Buried, now in theaters. It scared [...]
The title of Oliver Stone’s new film is Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. For all I know, that may be true—my relationship with Money, to date, hasn’t been intimate enough to say. If so, then maybe Money should consider sitting through this film. It’s a sequel, of course, to Wall Street, Stone’s 1987 hit. An [...]
A couple of weeks ago I had a strong wish to see a donkey and a howler monkey. This didn’t come out of nowhere. I was in the middle of reading Beatrice & Virgil, Yann Martel’s strange and compelling short novel in which the title characters are, respectively, a donkey and a howler monkey. The [...]
Possibly the finest hour onscreen for Mickey Mouse was “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” the segment of 1940’s Fantasia in which he played the title role. The episode is a wordless pantomime, which helps a lot for those of us who find the voice of Disney’s signature rodent grating, to the 1897 orchestral program piece by Paul [...]
Several times in the course of Knight and Day, hero Tom Cruise drugs heroine Cameron Diaz or otherwise causes her to lose consciousness. This happens when the two of them are in a crisis, with the bad guys closing in and the chances of escape unpromising. Then Cameron will black out, and wake to find [...]
Andy Garcia has been around movies since the mid-‘80s, playing gangsters, cops and other steely tough guys. My wife has always had a strong aversion to his work, and while I liked some of his early roles, in The Untouchables, for instance, he’s never been a special favorite of mine, either. There’s something generic and [...]
