apboy2 Reviews

The Sparks Brothers (2021)

But we can hear what others can't hear ...

[9/10 · 23 June 2021]

It was heartbreaking but not surprising that I watched The Sparks Brothers in a theater with four other people in it. Too bad, because Edgar Wright's affectionate documentary is the perfect portal into a musical world like no other. I'm thankful he approached it chronologically instead of in flashbacks; like the Mael brothers themselves, the film moves ahead and doesn't spend an inordinate amount of time looking back. It could have been 15 minutes shorter without the interviews with the likes of Patton Oswalt and Mike Myers, and I would like to have heard from a few more musicians acknowledging Sparks' influence on them (Erasure's Vince Clarke is among those who do). If you 'get' Sparks you will adore this film, but as the turnout at the theater demonstrated, they are and always will be an acquired taste (for tasteful people, anyway).

FrackNation (2013)

unconventional wisdom

[8/10 · 18 July 2013]

When I happened across this movie 20 minutes into it, I thought, "How clever of Big Energy, hiring this humble filmmaker to create pro-fracking propaganda for them." But the longer I watched, the clearer it became to me that McAleer wasn't advocating fracking, just pursuing facts and not pushing anything. I came away with a realization that yeah! there really is another side to the "conventional wisdom." I'm guessing the majority of people who have even heard of fracking are against it because of what they've been fed by "green" types helped by media that are more lazy than biased. I hope McAleer's message will somehow reach people whose attitude is, "Don't confuse me with facts."

No Country for Old Men (2007)

About as suspenseful as The Sound of Music

[8/10 · 29 November 2007]

OK, I gave it 8/10 for the photography and the acting. The story? Come on. By the time Woody Harrelson's character is rubbed out, does anybody seriously think anybody is going to stop Anton from killing Moss? The Coens don't even give us the satisfaction of seeing Moss done in ... and he certainly deserved it, the way they had him screw around with the money when he just should have thrown it in his truck and got the hell out of Dodge, so to speak. I have no idea where people who are calling this movie "suspenseful" are getting it from. No confrontation between any of the 3 major characters, none of the cat-and-mouse you'd expect along the lines of The Third Man ... and watch this comment be attacked by the "I get Coen Brothers movies and you don't" crowd. Miller's Crossing was better. The Man Who Wasn't There was better. This is not their best work. Sorry.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Murder, Myth & Modernism (2005 TV Movie)

Disappointing

[7/10 · 11 October 2007]

I would have expected the BBC to do a better job of introducing people to Wright. The interviews with Meryle Secrest (whose biography of FLW turned me into a fan), Ada Louise Huxtable and his grandson Eric Lloyd Wright were worthwhile, as were the home movies and the TV interviews (the voice off-camera in the interview near the end is that of Mike Wallace). But framing the thing around the 1914 murders at Taliesin, making it sound like the defining event of his life (it wasn't), and then revisiting the tragedy two-thirds of the way through, came off as lurid and exploitative. They gloss over his Prairie houses and, worse, virtually ignore the Usonian houses that made up at least half of his body of work. It came off mostly as a by-the-numbers caricature that could have done a better job with both the praise and the criticism.

The Great Silence (1968)

Charles Bronson, spinning in his grave

[7/10 · 16 September 2007]

Movies like this are why I love movies. Look past the dumb dialogue and enjoy the gorgeous scenery, period authenticity and Morricone's score (not anywhere close to TGTBATU but enjoyable nonetheless). Despite refusing to speak any lines, Trintignant did some decent acting. Kinski was at his creepiest.

That said, I have to confess I didn't like the ending. Few if any IMDb types would mind the good guy(s) losing, but I'm honest enough to admit that I've been CONDITIONED by Bronson, Eastwood, RoboCop et al. to expect righteous vengeance. The Great Silence made me rethink what we expect out of movies, especially with the likes of Kevin Bacon and Jodie Foster currently killing anything that moves. Kudos to IMDb for putting it out there.

Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

I've seen worse chick flicks

[7/10 · 28 January 2006]

Gosh, folks either love or hate "Sweet Home Alabama," don't they? I suspect the ones who love it are the types who call them "movies" and those who hate it are the types who call them "films." Me, I watched it because the wife is a sucker for chick flicks in general and Reese Witherspoon in particular and somehow I just couldn't talk her into watching "Sin City."

I gave it a 7 for Fred Ward, Candice Bergen and Jean Smart, mostly. C'mon, you "film" types, give the supporting cast some credit for saving it from being worse than it could have been. And while we're at it, watch the alternate ending on the DVD ... would that have ruined it for everybody who likes this movie or would it have improved it for everybody who hates this film?

Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)

Dirk Bogarde: Cad or Bounder? (possible spoiler!)

[7/10 · 22 November 2004]

Caught this on TCM on my day off and was reasonably entertained. It had been years since I saw Bogarde in anything and he looks like he accomplished what he set out to do ... be slick and gracefully evil. I lost track of what went on at the end; first I thought he'd completely flipped and was trying to kill himself, then changed his mind and tried not to. He had to have known the car he'd driven away in was the one he had rigged to crash.

Regardless, I found the film to be an interesting bit of late-stage noir with not a little bit of chick flick tossed in. For a bunch of older characters, the women were pretty saucy!

Mr. Baseball (1992)

Hard not to like Tom Selleck.

[6/10 · 7 May 2004]

I never figured out why Tom Selleck didn't do better in the movies. He was excellent in Three Men and a Baby and this performance goes at least a little bit beyond the "playing Tom Selleck" thing. I could say more if the ABC Family Channel hadn't cut a 108-minute movie to fit a one-hour time slot. It was like watching an extended trailer. I guess ABC assumes its viewers have short attention spans, or felt it was really, really important to get a rerun of "Whose Line It It, Anyway?" into the schedule. P.s. The last scene where Mr. Baseball has caught on with the Detroit Tigers is a hoot. If you know how wretched the Tigers have been in the decade-plus since this movie came out, you'd think management would have hired Tom Selleck just to sell some tickets.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Didn't expect much, so ...

[5/10 · 16 July 2003]

... I wasn't disappointed. I guess if you're a critic or a much bigger movie freak than I am, LXG isn't much of a special effects/sci-fi extravaganza. But I thought it was OK. Is Peta Wilson the perfect Mina Harker or what?

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)

Chix Flix Politix

[6/10 · 4 July 2003]

If I'm going to be dragged to a chick flick, I'd like to see the depiction of a (relatively mature) male/female relationship, not one in which the main relationships are between a girl and her dog, a girl and The System and the dog and his gay boyfriend. But I went anyway.

Woman of the Year (1942)

Misanthropy is 20/20

[7/10 · 1 June 2003]

Of course this movie predates the rise of feminism by 25 years or so. But the way Hepburn ends up being "put in her place" _ despite the script's halfhearted lunge toward compromise in the final few scenes _ seems hard to comprehend even in the context of those times. The U.S. had just joined World War II and women were streaming into the factories, the military and other nontraditional settings to do the "men's work" needed for the war effort. Was this movie supposed to be some kind of warning to them, to not get too many ideas about independence? I haven't seen many Tracy-Hepburn movies and I found this one somewhat disappointing. I will say, however, that Katherine Hepburn was a hottie.

The Paper Chase (1973)

Doesn't stand up on appeal

[4/10 · 5 May 2003]

The acting was very good. The photography was good. So why didn't I like this movie? Because the script sucked. Are we supposed to believe at the end that Hart chucked the entire Harvard Law experience ... for what? To make a paper airplane out of the envelope containing his grades? Great symbolism if you're watching this and you're 20 years old (as I was in 1973), but nowhere up to that point do I have any reason to think he's going to become anything but a hotshot lawyer who's screwing his evil professor's daughter for good measure. The rest of the characters were so underdeveloped as to make the movie seem amateurish. Beyond John Houseman's acting, I don't understand the acclaim it got.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003)

A Bit of a Stretch

[6/10 · 28 April 2003]

I read and enjoyed the book, too, but it and the movie make several points I disagree with: _ Almost all of the people mentioned in this film are still around, if you don't count cancer victim Hal Ashby, one-hit wonder Sam Peckinpah and the inconsequential Julia Phillips. The idea that most of them crashed and burned, never to return, is a bit of a stretch, unless you include those whose careers have tanked over the past 20 years, e.g., Coppola. _ The film neglects to mention that the architect of the auteur-smothering blockbuster was/is Steven Spielberg, who never seems to have had a nasty moment with anybody ... not the Easy Riders/Raging Bulls, and not the studios. There was some good dish, though, and on the whole it was worthwhile viewing.

The Godfather (1972)

Close, but not the greatest

[10/10 · 13 January 2000]

"The Godfather" is a visceral achievement in moviemaking and has a rightful place near the top of any list of the greatest films ever made. It seizes your attention, doesn't let go and takes you down the road promised to immigrants to America -- before taking a turn in which we confront the prejudices, mistrust and other roadblocks to the realization of their dreams, and how they went on to create success on their terms. But I have to put it near the top, not AT the top. That honor, on my list, belongs to "The Godfather Part II," for a reason that it's hard to fault Coppola for. In "The Godfather," I found Michael to be too far outside the family at the beginning of the movie. While not renouncing his father, Sonny or their enterprise, Michael seems to be more of an observer in an Army uniform with his white-bread girlfriend nearby than a family member PLANNING to immerse himself in the life his father and brother have chosen. Obviously Michael is drawn closer to his family as it becomes threatened with, then targeted by, violence. This is understandable but, to me, not foreshadowed by the life outside the family that he had chosen a few years earlier and seemed to be comfortable with. Of course, "Part II" gives a much fuller picture of how Michael got to where he was in running the enterprise, and heading the family. But we already know all we need to know about his motives and choices -- courtesy of "The Godfather." This deeper, more realized character of Michael in "Part II" is the reason I rate it ahead of "The Godfather" -- but not by much.