Mars Express (2023) – ***½ I suppose if I watched more anime, I’d be more likely to find this film old hat; hell, having seen Blade Runner and 2049, which this strongly echoes (it also echoes Her to a lesser degree), I should be saying “I’ve seen this all before.” And yet here I am,…
Tag: Film Reviews
HAWAII (1966) Review – ***
What makes an epic? Is it length? On that count, Hawaii would qualify; the full roadshow version (which I watched on VHS – it’s not readily available) runs 189 minutes with overture, intermission, and exit music, and even the readily available version runs 160. Is it subject? Well, it deals with the colonization and Christianization…
The Weekly Gravy #188
The Burning Hell (1974) – Dreck I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell. – Isaac Asimov I doubt Asimov ever saw the films…
The Weekly Gravy #187
The Letter (1940) – **** There’s no question in The Letter of who done it – from the very beginning we know that Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) shot Geoffrey Hammond. And while it’s a little before we learn exactly why, it’s pretty clear that her claims of shooting him in self-defense are a lie; if…
The Weekly Gravy #186
Catch My Soul/Santa Fe Satan (1974) – **½ Othello is one of Shakespeare’s thorniest tragedies, with an interracial marriage at its core which deteriorates under the villain’s influence into violence and finally murder, and with a title role all too often played by white actors in blackface – including at least one production of this…
O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA Review – ****
Hearing about the death of O.J. Simpson, I decided to go ahead and publish a fuller review of the brilliant documentary that sums up his life, his career, and the social context in which his trial occurred, leaving little room in my mind that he was, indeed, guilty. This was what I wrote in a…
The Weekly Gravy #185
Braveheart (1995) – *** Braveheart is one of the most curious and contested Picture winners I can think of. It inspires passionate support from some and denunciations from others (Erik Beck shreds it here, my cousin here), but all of that is in hindsight. In 1995, it entered the race with good but not brilliant…
The Weekly Gravy #184
The Life of Emile Zola (1937) – *** 30 minutes into The Life of Emile Zola, we cut from Zola, who’s risen from an impoverished young writer living in a garret to a wealthy middle-aged man living in luxury, to Maj. Esterhazy (Robert Barrat) writing a letter to the German military attaché which will be…
The Weekly Gravy #183
The Graduate (1967) – **** It’s fascinating to read Roger Ebert’s review of the 30th anniversary reissue of The Graduate and see how he takes the film to task – not so much, I think, because the film is, as he suggests, an artifact of its time, but because he misread it when he was…
The Weekly Gravy #182
Bobi Wine: The People’s President (2022) – ***½ Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary Feature I haven’t seen many bad documentaries, and most of those I’ve seen have been very good (***½) or great (****). But those are both broad tiers, with a lot of room for nuance, and there’s a definite difference between a high ***½…
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