February 2012
2 posts
A Dangerous Method
A Dangerous Method
1E
A Dangerous Method came close to receiving a 0. Although the title suggests it will be a exegesis of the development of psychoanalysis and the controversy between Freud and Jung, in fact the movie is more of a chick flick about the adulterous relationship between Jung and his first patient Sabine Spielrein.
To give the devil its due, the movie did fairly accurately...
The Artist
1E
The Artist came close to a 2.
There is only about 3 minutes of talking in this almost entirely silent film. The story, told in other films, most notably Singing in the Rain, concerns the tumultuous transition from silent movies to talkies. Note that the silent era lasted an entire generation from approximately 1900 to 1929. Consequently, there was a well developed industry in the...
December 2011
6 posts
Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows - Movie Review
1E
There have been over 30 film and tv versions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. The general story is familiar to most audiences. Holmes is a hypercerebral detective, whose sous-detective is the bumbling Dr. John Watson. Holmes has an equally brilliant brother, Mycroft, who while working for the British Government plays a very small role in a couple of the...
The Mill and the Cross - Movie Review
Rating 1I Brutish, brilliant, and Breughel describe The Mill and the Cross. It is not for the squemish. That noted it is an extraordinary film. Breughel was active in the middle 1500’s when Flanders was under the yoke of Catholic Spain at the height of the era of persecution of non-believers. The Spanish Inquisition lingered and all non-Catholics were either crucified or had to become a...
Mission Impossible - Movie Review
1E* We are certainly a long way from Gene Autry’s trick cowboy riding of the movies of the 30’s. Along with Yakima Canutt, one might argue that they began the combination of purposeful action of stunts in movies. We would agree that the stunts of Harold Lloyd, most notably, were daring and visually engaging, but his stunts were primarily for the sake of a “oh my”, not to...
Melancholia - Movie Review
0 While only 5% of films receive my lowest rating, unfortunately, I cannot recommend wasting money on this movie. Why? Well, the acting is superb. The cast is excellent: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainbourg, Keifer Sutherland, John Hurt, etc. The cinematography is similarly excellent. Simply stated, the plot intends to be philosophically provocative, and it fails miserably. The general plot,...
The Hedgehog - Movie Review
Rating - 1I Ah the French, how they can be so large and so small at the same time. No other country achieves such parallelism in its culture. And the title, which is explained in the movie, and is not here a spoiler, is described as prickly on the outside, but different on this inside - how apt. The protagonist is an extremely precocious 11 year old girl, planning to commit suicide on her 12th...
The Guard - Movie Review
Rated 1E* Beyond the ordinary and somewhat predictable cops and robbers (drug smugglers in this case) plot, the dialogue is filled with a fair amount of funny, off-beat, and in-your-face iconoclastic attacks on stereotypes. For example, the bad guys quote from Schopenauer and Nietzsche. The three smugglers engage in an ongoing philosophical conversation about the nature of being a drug...