|
|
White Heat
(1949)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Though undeniably exciting, the net result is pretty pointless and very brutal.
Posted Apr 22, 2024
|
|
|
The Caine Mutiny
(1954)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The film is a creditable adaptation of a stirring tale. The necessary pruning has been so done that the novel’s clash of events and characters retains its original balance.
Posted Apr 19, 2024
|
|
|
The Lavender Hill Mob
(1951)
|
Moira Walsh
|
T.E.B. Clarke's script is a tongue in cheek masterpiece of ingenious improbability.
Posted Apr 18, 2024
|
|
|
Sabrina
(1954)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The leading players are professionally competent as usual but seem miscast, with the exception of Miss Hepburn, whose role has been tailored to exploit her elfin charms and who succeeds in being a little too elfin to be quite bearable.
Posted Mar 28, 2024
|
|
|
The Big Heat
(1953)
|
Moira Walsh
|
This aggregation of horrors succeeds in being so repellent, and also so unreal and ultimately ludicrous, that I would not have mentioned the picture except that, strange to say, it has been given quite favorable mention in other quarters.
Posted Mar 27, 2024
|
|
|
The Searchers
(1956)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The film has a seemingly authentic feeling for the harshness and crudity of frontier life... and any number of striking photographic effects. It is curiously deficient however in the unity and cumulative power implicit in the material.
Posted Mar 25, 2024
|
|
|
Cabrini
(2024)
|
John Anderson
|
Cabrini, while certainly a hagiography, is dramatically and cinematically sound and even, now and then, visually breathtaking.
Posted Mar 08, 2024
|
|
|
Westward the Women
(1951)
|
Moira Walsh
|
It seldom gets out of the standard, adult horse-opera class.
Posted Feb 23, 2024
|
|
|
Poor Things
(2023)
|
John Anderson
|
[It's] teeming with visual ideas, jolts to the adrenal gland, and a performance by Emma Stone so singular it may end up residing in the history of cinema alongside those of Louise Brooks (Pandora’s Box) and Maria Falconetti (The Passion of Joan of Arc).
Posted Dec 08, 2023
|
|
|
The Lone Ranger
(1956)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The picture proceeds exactly according to formula. It has enough elementary action to have provided a bonanza for stunt men but its appeal would appear to be limited strictly to small boys of all ages.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
|
|
|
Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
|
John Anderson
|
[Scorsese] continues as an octogenarian to explore and expand the possibilities of the medium and scour his own soul. He has created, with the sweep of grand opera, a film unlike anything he has ever done.
Posted Oct 20, 2023
|
|
|
The Miracle Club
(2023)
|
John Anderson
|
What is transformative in The Miracle Club is the complete shift in tone, and arrival of dramatic gravity, at the moment Linney enters the movie.
Posted Jul 19, 2023
|
|
|
Padre Pio
(2022)
|
John Anderson
|
Ferrara’s Padre Pio is not the hero of his movie, far from it. But his sainted Pio does pose moral quandaries that may require heroic effort to reconcile.
Posted Jun 07, 2023
|
|
|
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The story... seems pretty crude and pointless in modern dress.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
|
|
|
Sayonara
(1957)
|
Moira Walsh
|
It does not convince you that the characters are so much in love that they must go against normal conventions in choosing a marriage partner. It merely says that they are.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
|
|
|
Flower Drum Song
(1961)
|
Moira Walsh
|
This picture is pleasant enough entertainment.
Posted Feb 28, 2023
|
|
|
Stalag 17
(1953)
|
Moira Walsh
|
To me, however, it seemed sufficiently cynical in tone and contrived in structure to preclude the realism and the affirmation of the resiliency of the human spirit, which adults expect such materials to yield.
Posted Nov 04, 2022
|
|
|
Tár
(2022)
|
John Anderson
|
Tár is about power, guilt and the always tantalizing question of whether the art can or should absolve the artist for being who she is.
Posted Oct 13, 2022
|
|
|
High Noon
(1952)
|
Moira Walsh
|
A tense and exciting evening's entertainment for adults. As a parable of humanity's moral cowardice, however, the film rings false.
Posted Sep 20, 2022
|
|
|
A Raisin in the Sun
(1961)
|
Moira Walsh
|
A powerful drama about basically decent, ordinary, likeable people.
Posted Aug 23, 2022
|
|
|
Father Stu
(2022)
|
John Anderson
|
Father Stu is intended to be inspirational, but viewers may find any sense of elevation elusive.
Posted Apr 14, 2022
|
|
|
Gigi
(1958)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The picture may be slow-moving in spots and ultimately rather cloying in its opulent prettiness. Nevertheless it is an expert piece of moviemaking in all departments, and boasts an array of plus values that should certainly capture the public's fancy.
Posted Mar 24, 2022
|
|
|
Great Freedom
(2021)
|
Eve Tushnet
|
This real history adds urgency and anguish to a film that swerves away from the certainties of the “message movie” into the mysteries of fable.
Posted Mar 18, 2022
|
|
|
Parallel Mothers
(2021)
|
John Anderson
|
What won't be a surprise for those familiar with Almodóvar is the film's mix of restraint and extravagance, the director's delirious use of color, his ecstatic aesthetic and a sense of the theatrical.
Posted Jan 28, 2022
|
|
|
Porgy and Bess
(1959)
|
Moira Walsh
|
[It's] exquisite to look at and its reproduction of the Gershwin score is well-nigh perfect. To obtain this physical perfection, however, it has sacrificed the universal human appeal which... was what endeared it to audiences all over the world.
Posted Jan 20, 2022
|
|
|
Being the Ricardos
(2021)
|
John Anderson
|
Kidman is a first-rate, Oscar-winning actress; her Lucille Ball is a fully realized character... The problem is, Sorkin's Ball ends up being so unlikable you don't want to spend this much time with her.
Posted Dec 29, 2021
|
|
|
Belfast
(2021)
|
John Anderson
|
One could fault Branagh, one supposes, for not painting a grimmer, more naturalistic portrait of his problematic birthplace, but his mission is not to recreate childhood as history, but rather as a highly selective source of one's artistic inspiration.
Posted Dec 10, 2021
|
|
|
Nightmare Alley
(1947)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Neither profound nor even very convincing; and it tends to take human depravity for granted in a way that is far more likely to turn the stomach than to stimulate the mind.
Posted Dec 03, 2021
|
|
|
West Side Story
(1961)
|
Moira Walsh
|
I have several serious reservations about the film... Nevertheless, this is a film of extraordinary power and beauty and impact. It does catch fire.
Posted Dec 01, 2021
|
|
|
All the King's Men
(1949)
|
Moira Walsh
|
It is not a pleasant experience sitting through a picture which does not have any character of real moral stature, but the film's forceful point is that venality and fear are the reasons why it could happen here.
Posted Nov 30, 2021
|
|
|
Procession
(2021)
|
John Anderson
|
Procession is a film that makes you think. It certainly doesn't make you comfortable.
Posted Nov 24, 2021
|
|
|
The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957)
|
Moira Walsh
|
This latter-day Colonel Blimp is pretty hard to swallow as a symbol of the military mind, but Guinness' superb performance makes him terrifyingly and unforgettably real as an individual.
Posted Nov 17, 2021
|
|
|
Paths of Glory
(1957)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Stanley Kubrick brings a controlled power to his direction of the uncompromisingly grim events, and Kirk Douglas, who produced the film, finds a most congenial role as an uncorrupted French colonel fighting for his men.
Posted Nov 17, 2021
|
|
|
Dune
(2021)
|
John Anderson
|
With plans to continue the story into a second movie, Villeneuve starts spinning his wheels in the sand about halfway to a sandwormy destination. It is terribly disappointing.
Posted Oct 28, 2021
|
|
|
Marty
(1955)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The wealth of observed detail about life in the Bronx (the film's locale and also where it was made) conveys a vibrant and unmistakable ring of truth.
Posted Oct 18, 2021
|
|
|
Sunset Boulevard
(1950)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Quibbles about plausibility aside, the characters come to life within their narrow, melodramatic framework.
Posted Oct 11, 2021
|
|
|
The Many Saints of Newark
(2021)
|
John Anderson
|
As becomes almost immediately clear, there was no real reason for the movie to have been made, no inspiration for it that was not commercial.
Posted Oct 07, 2021
|
|
|
The Little Fugitive
(1953)
|
Moira Walsh
|
An acutely observed, touching, almost irresistibly funny and not at all pretentious account of a small boy's twenty-four hours of solitary adventuring in Coney Island.
Posted Sep 16, 2021
|
|
|
The Littlest Outlaw
(1955)
|
Moira Walsh
|
There is a good deal of the charm of a fairy story about the picture and also some superb riding sequences.
Posted Aug 23, 2021
|
|
|
Adventure in Baltimore
(1949)
|
Moira Walsh
|
[Shirley Temple, Robert Young, and John Agar] are the attractive principals; but their efforts are hampered by a script that never gets much beyond superficial sentiment and contrived comic situations.
Posted Jul 29, 2021
|
|
|
Red Canyon
(1949)
|
Moira Walsh
|
[A] pleasant and somewhat unusual family Western.
Posted Jul 29, 2021
|
|
|
The Trouble With Women
(1947)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Thin and predictable and only mildly amusing.
Posted Jul 29, 2021
|
|
|
Black Orpheus
(1959)
|
Moira Walsh
|
What remains is an arty, empty shell of a picture.
Posted Jul 27, 2021
|
|
|
The Pearl
(1947)
|
Moira Walsh
|
John Steinbeck's novelization of a fisherman's legend has been lovingly screened in the country of its setting with an English-speaking native cast including Pedro Armendariz and Maria Elena Marques.
Posted Jul 19, 2021
|
|
|
From Here to Eternity
(1953)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Altogether, while I am more than normally receptive to pictures that eschew false glamor and artificially imposed happy endings, this one seemed merely sordid rather than a serious or responsible presentation of a real problem.
Posted Jul 15, 2021
|
|
|
Inferno
(1953)
|
Moira Walsh
|
While the situations sometimes seem contrived, the picture is absorbing.
Posted Jul 15, 2021
|
|
|
On the Waterfront
(1954)
|
Moira Walsh
|
Elia Kazan's direction is uncannily apt in capturing the essentials of interior conflict in visual terms.
Posted Jul 15, 2021
|
|
|
Invitation
(1952)
|
Moira Walsh
|
The particular premises in this case are preposterous rather than daring.
Posted Jul 15, 2021
|
|
|
Phone Call From a Stranger
(1952)
|
Moira Walsh
|
With an assist from Jean Negulesco's lucid and well-placed direction it makes an absorbing show.
Posted Jul 15, 2021
|
|
|
Gentleman's Agreement
(1947)
|
Moira Walsh
|
It vitiates its overall effectiveness by an extremely long-winded treatment of a story which seems even shallower and more synthetic than it did in the book.
Posted Jul 15, 2021
|
>
