Clik here to view.
The Social Network
The Blu-ray and DVD covers for The Social Network aren’t typical covers, since their focal points are critics’ blurbs about how great this movie is. “An American Landmark!” “A Brilliant Film.”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Inception
It seems odd to think of Inception as a science-fiction heist flick. While it is just that, it never feels like that. Perhaps that’s because, as viewers, we’re too absorbed and distracted to think...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Night of the Hunter
It’s possible that The Night of the Hunter is the best film ever made. That’s such a contentious claim, we know. But as a midwestern Americans, we understand it very well, and thematically and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Prisoner (1955)
The cardinal is arrested. He is told that he is a man of the church, someone outside of the state. For suspected treason, he is interrogated and tortured for weeks, and he is ordered to confess his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Straight Story
There are a lot of road movies, many of which are about individual catharsis. Few, if any, are better than The Straight Story, a celebration of the upper Midwest. If you’ve experienced them, you’ve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wages of Fear
Apparently, there’s an audience for watching tough guys do dangerous jobs. There’s no other explanation for the popularity of the cable TV shows about deep sea fishermen, ice road truckers, demolition...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Devil’s Brigade
We thought there was a rule that no WWII mission movie could be unwatchable. No such movie can go wrong, theoretically. The premise promises adventure — a team of soldiers or commandos goes on an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
A professor of ours once declared that there was only one good science fiction work. Everything else in the genre, he claimed, was simplistic and soon would be outdated, if it wasn’t already. For...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Next Three Days
The Next Three Days is highly entertaining, yet entirely ridiculous. It qualifies as a how-could-a movie. A how-could-a movie is a movie during which you keep asking yourself the question “How...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Matchstick Men
Matchstick Men is a movie that a lot of regular moviewatchers would despise, with good reason. It stars Nicolas Cage, who, if you don’t like him, you’ll think he’s overacting here. And then the movie...
View Article