Category Archives: movie review

State of the Onion

A kind of review, I guess. Executive summary: a fun satire of techbro billionaires and their self-built cults, set inside a movie about mystery stories and puzzles. It’s maybe half an hour too long, like practically every movie made nowadays. … Continue reading

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B+ Movie: ME & MY GAL

Executive summary: this is an interesting pre-Hays-Code comedy/melodrama that’s worth watching at least once. Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett star in this fast-moving but minor movie, directed by Raoul Walsh in 19 days and written by at least seven people … Continue reading

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Screwball of Fire

I’m just off a couple weeks of grading at the end of the term. When I’m grading stacks of quizzes, I usually have a video running in the background to assuage the pain of this unnatural activity. This semester I … Continue reading

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“Enos Marmor Iuvato!”

Movies don’t generally do space adventure well. The best sf movies involving space travel are mostly science fantasy (e.g. the Star Wars franchise). Which I also like, but which is different. So I was excited to hear about Mars, an … Continue reading

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The Re-Mazing Spider-Man

I went to see The Amazing Spider-Man last weekend, like millions of my fellow Americans, some of whom had seen it before. Sometimes I felt like I’d seen it before, too–but as someone who’s been following Spidey’s career for well … Continue reading

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Make Womb! Make Womb!

As fate and my innamorata would have it, I watched (within the space of a few days) two movies based on old Ira Levin novels: The Stepford Wives and Rosemary’s Baby. It seems crazy to give a spoiler alert about movies … Continue reading

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Bath of the Titans

On Friday evening I set out with an intrepid band to see The Maltese Falcon on the big screen at the Valentine theater in the big town of Toledo. Through a set of hilarious circumstances we ended up eating dinner … Continue reading

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Batman Strikes Out, and 2 Pix

I rewatched Batman Returns recently. It’s a visually beautiful movie. It reminded me constantly of an over-the-top production of an opera–an impression helped along by a lushly operatic soundtrack by Danny Elfman. For visual effects CGI can’t rival, the movie … Continue reading

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Putting the Just in Adjustment

The Adjustment Bureau, like every third movie out of Hollywood these days, is based on a Philip K. Dick story I haven’t read (in this case “Adjustment Team”). I have to admit that the Great Dickening of our times baffles … Continue reading

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