Alfred Hitchcock’s first masterpiece brings almost as many laughs as thrills. The new Criterion Blu-ray gives this near-perfect entertainment a new polish and some interesting extras. The Lady Vanishes holds an interesting place amongst Hitchcock’s work. It was his penultimate British film before going to America. It is, in my opinion, his first true masterpiece. [...]
Filed under: Blu-ray Review, Comedy | Tagged: Blu-ray, Hitchcock | Leave a Comment »
With The Artist finally playing locally, I thought it would be fun to look at other post-silent movies with little or no dialog. Cinema, in its purest form, is a visual art. What it can do without words has always been more powerful than what it can do with them. If I ran my own [...]
Filed under: Comedy, Silent Films | Tagged: animation, Chaplin, comedy, Jacques Tati, Japanese cinema, Pixar, silent film | 1 Comment »
A Dramatic Comedy Written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius The question with which I opened my Hugo post applies even more to Michel Hazanavicius’ new silent film: Did I–and other cinephiles–love The Artist because it is a very good motion picture, or because the story, setting, and style are so close to any cinephile’s heart? [...]
Filed under: Comedy, Reviews, Silent Films | Tagged: movies, silent film | Leave a Comment »
B+ Sex Comedy Written by Theresa Rebeck Directed by Amy Glazer Charlie Barker (Stephen Barker Turner) is not a happy man, and wild sex with a young, gorgeous, horny, yet stupid sociopath will not improve anything. Seducing Charlie Barker starts as a comedy and grows serious, a trick few films successfully pull off. It helps [...]
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I discovered a rare gem Friday night–a modestly-budgeted Hollywood film from 1988 called Miracle Mile. I’d never heard of it before, and have no idea if it ever played the Bay Area. Without a doubt, this is the very best dark and suspenseful romantic comedy I’ve ever seen about the end of civilization as we [...]
Filed under: Comedy, First-person Report, Little Known Gems | 1 Comment »
Friday night I attended the opening screenings in the Pacific Film Archive’s new series, The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies. These were not classics that everyone knows and loves, but movies of their time that few remember today: The Heartbreak Kid and The Landlord. The Heartbreak Kid When you think of the edgy [...]
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Full disclosure: I’m reviewing a Blu-ray set that I don’t even have. Kino accidentally sent me the DVD set rather than the Blu-ray. In fairness, this may be my fault. When I emailed a request for a review copy, I neglected to specify what format. Luckily, the content of the two sets are identical, so [...]
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A Teenage comedy/drama Written by Patrick deWitt Directed by Azazel Jacobs Terri (newcomer Jacob Wysocki) has problems well beyond those of your average adolescent. For one thing, he’s extremely overweight. He lives with a mentally-ill uncle. He dresses only in pajamas, and gets to school late almost every day. On the upside, the school’s guidance [...]
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Note: I wrote this review after screening this film for the 2008 San Francisco Film Festival, and saved it as a draft, waiting for a theatrical release that never happened. I’ve discovered today that it’s available for instant streaming on Netflix, so I’m posting it now. B Coming-of-age comedy Written by Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, from [...]
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D- Horror comedy Note: I wrote this review in the spring of 2010, and planned to post it just before a then-planned Bay Area theatrical release. The release never happened, and the review was left unpublished. Since the movie is available on Netflix, I’ve decided to post the review now, in hopes that I will spare some [...]
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