No doubt consciously timed for the opening of the baseball season, the new movie “42” provides a valuable lesson in contemporary American history, showing viewers the culture of baseball and of the nation not all that long ago. As everyone must know, the picture deals with some of Jackie Robinson’s struggles as the first black […]
George Grella
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“On the Road”
For reasons no critic quite comprehends, Neal Cassady commanded the attention and indeed the love of most of the major members of the Beat Generation, dominating their literature and their lives. The Beat saint, the holy goof, a car thief, street hustler, speed freak, and prodigious womanizer, he even accomplished the odd transition from one […]
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“The Host”
The millions of fans of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” novels and the execrable film series based on them should take great pleasure in the release of “The Host,” the new movie adapted from another of her works. Like the jazz musician who said that after hearing Lawrence Welk he’d have to rethink Guy Lombardo, this picture […]
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Olympus Has Fallen
Some viewers may recall “Independence Day,” the 1996 movie about a massive attack on the Capitol, the White House, and the most famous monuments of Washington, D.C. That picture inspired a curious delight among the usual right-wing haters, because they regarded it as an appropriate fulfillment of their endless litany of violent anti-government hysteria, and […]
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“The Call”
Her appearance in “The Call” suggests that Halle Berry, who’s been very busy lately, occupies a position in Hollywood as a kind of female counterpart to those male stars who specialize in action movies. Aside from playing Catwoman, she also serves as one of the charter members of the X-Men in that blockbuster franchise. Most […]
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“Oz the Great and Powerful”
As the new movie “Oz the Great and Powerful” demonstrates, L. Frank Baum’s fantasies about the magical land of Oz remain a source of enchantment for filmmakers and audiences. Dramatic and cinematic adaptations of the stories date back to the early years of the 20th century and continue through the present day, with such works […]
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“Phantom”
This time of year, the odd hiatus that occurs somewhere in between the competing distractions of the holidays, the Oscars, and the anticipation of the new spring crop, often serves as Hollywood’s dumping ground. It’s the place on the calendar where films that have languished on the shelf for one reason or another, films without […]
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“Dark Skies”
Like the movies themselves, the haunted house, a favorite real estate of generations of horror, has come a long way from the gloomy castle or the dark Victorian pile; directors now relocate that spooky domicile to the more recognizable suburbs that proliferate and spread their interchangeable blandness across our great nation. The menace that once […]
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“A Good Day to Die Hard”
The fifth film in a franchise that began way back in 1988 demonstrates Hollywood’s faith in the repetition of formulas and its concomitant tendency toward depletion of imagination. The new movie in the “Die Hard” series, “A Good Day to Die Hard,” deploys just about all the elements that distinguished its predecessors, including Bruce Willis, […]
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MOVIE REVIEW: “Side Effects”
Foreign visitors who notice all those pharmaceutical advertisements on television often remark that Americans seem a sickly people. The innumerable diseases that afflict our population — in Hamlet’s words, the thousand ills that flesh is heir to — apparently however meet their match in those glossy commercials, which promise treatments for such problems as allergies, […]
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MOVIE REVIEW: “Stand Up Guys”
One of the pleasures of the new movie “Stand Up Guys” involves the connections between the roles the actors occupy and the actors themselves. The three stars, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin, play aging criminals who reunite after working together many years ago; watching them in action, no viewer could ignore the fact […]
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MOVIE REVIEW: “Parker”
Like many prolific popular genre novelists, the late Donald E. Westlake published under a variety of pseudonyms; although known mostly as a mystery writer, he also dabbled in other forms, like science fiction and film, including the screenplay for “The Grifters,” based on the Jim Thompson novel. His best books, written as Richard Stark, however, […]
