Suddenly
Suddenly is one of those movies where the lead performance is so dazzling that any scene without them feels like a slog. Frank Sinatra is ridiculously fun to watch even though the story is simple, the other actors have weird and flat affects, and this badly colorized black and white movie has a strange rainbow shimmer and Ol’ Blue Eyes has brown eyes for some reason. Even though he’s teeny tiny and facing off with big burly dudes, he’s convincingly intimidating. He’s so g
4 days ago6 min read
Silkwood
There are so many movies about whistle blowers because they’re the closest thing we have to real-life superheroes. They’re smart enough to see a problem, brave enough to do something about it, usually suffer for speaking out, and must have succeeded if their story’s interesting enough to make a movie about them. Karen Silkwood , played by Meryl Streep, works at the only major employer in her small Oklahoma town, a factory making plutonium fuel rods for a nuclear power plant.
4 days ago5 min read
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Girls Just Want to Have Fun is a weird little movie loosely based on the Cyndi Lauper song, although she refused to let them use it. It’s totally ‘80s in a fun, authentic way with Sarah Jessica Parker as a dance-obsessed teenager and her friend Helen Hunt, who wears the wildest hair accessories. It’s cute, sweet, and instantly forgettable, like cotton candy in movie form. SJP is the new girl at a Catholic school, introducing herself by saying she loves gymnastics and dance,
4 days ago4 min read
From Here to Eternity
This 1953 Best Picture winner, which also earned Frank Sinatra a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as well as six other Oscars, is the template for Michael Bay’s 2001 movie Pearl Harbor , which won none. The title comes from a Rudyard Kipling poem about soldiers “damned from here to eternity .” But the dramatic title doesn’t fix the main problem, which is that just like Bay’s movie, this is a dull melodrama that’s briefly elevated by historical events crashing in during the final m
4 days ago3 min read
Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
After his disastrous Popeye , Robert Altman rebuilt his credibility by making a series of small-budget movies based on plays, starting with Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean . Cher credits him with launching her acting career, starring alongside an ensemble of women who play members of a James Dean fan club reuniting in 1975, on the twentieth anniversary of hearing on the radio that he had died. It takes place in a small shop in a podunk West Texas town–the ki
4 days ago5 min read
Tuff Turf
T-U-F-F, that spells tuff!
Feb 25 min read