When Cinderella was released in 1950 it cost an astronomical amount of nearly $3 million bucks. Its success was necessary to avoid the collapse of Disney Studios. Luckily, it was a monster hit producing cash, again and again, in theater release. Not to mention the associated products and recordings that padded the profits. If it … Read more
America has been invaded. That is the premise of Red Dawn. Although we hear about the invasion, all we see of it takes place in and around Spokane, Washington (actually filmed in Michigan). Seems the North Koreans, abetted by the Russians, have found a way to mess up US communications and sneak in millions of … Read more
Cloud Atlas is a two hour and 52 minute movie that is highly symbolic. Of what, you ask? Don’t expect me to tell you. It starts out kind of slow and seems to drag to a halt then, once you pass the one hour and 45 minute mark, things start to pick up. As the … Read more
The title of this film and the main character are one and the same. AC is a forensic detective. He has been the subject of many successful novels and at least two prior films. Kiss the Girls (1997) and Along Came a Spider (2001) starred Morgan Freeman as the thinking, man-of-action detective. After 2001 the … Read more
This is Cinerama is the first Cinerama film to be released in Blu-ray format for home viewing. While many anomalies still exist, really fine work was done to bring this film to the home screen. The original three camera format is a problem when the image is flattened out to any flat screen TV format. … Read more
It appears PR never got any PR. Prior to the August 24 opening day I had never witnessed a single preview for this film at the theaters, or a TV ad of any kind. It’s as if Columbia Studios gave up on this thriller before the thrills started thrilling. PR was directed by David Koepp. … Read more
For those of you who don’t have total recall and cannot remember every writer I have written about in every review I have written since 1998 wake up! For those who can, you can skip to the bottom line of this review now. For the first, and, smaller group Total Recall is a remake of … Read more
TDKR is the final film (yeah, right!) of the Batman Trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan and featuring Christian Bale as the DK, Michael Caine as the butler and Morgan Freeman as the scientist in charge of science stuff. The film takes place 8 years after The Dark Knight, in which Heath Ledger stole the show … Read more
Released in June of 1965 TMMITFMOHIFFLTPI25H11M (whew!), from here on to be called TMM, was a road show release that runs 2 hours and 18 minutes. It had an intermission, not because of its length, but so patrons could try to finish reading through the title. It had a cast that, in its day, was … Read more
Although I write this on Earth Day 2012, I realize you may not be reading it till sometime after ED this year. In any case, Silent Running filmed in 1971 and released in 1972, is now 40 years old. This means you have had a long time to see it but I bet you haven’t … Read more