Movie genres come with expectations. We expect to see magic and mythical beasts in fantasy movies. Monsters in horror films. Car chases in action flicks. The western that doesn’t end in a gunfight is something other than a western. It’s a period piece. With suspense thrillers, we expect rising tensions, twists and turns, and...
I have a saying: Good novels make bad movies; bad novels make good movies. There are exceptions in both cases, but the maxim holds true in too many cases to ignore. The Circle by Dave Eggers, which I review last October, is a bad novel. So following my maxim, it should make a good movie....
“This is the best time of your life,” an adult told me, when I was in high school. Perhaps high school was the best time of his life, but it was far from the best time of mine. Add teenage angst plus a speech impediment plus a bookish disposition plus a withdrawn personality plus...
If I were grading Les Misérables (2012) like a term paper, I would be tempted to give it a C+ or a B-. If we assume C means average and B means good, this grade implies it’s better than average but less than good. It is an entertaining movie, worth seeing—especially if you’re in...
Rachel can’t move on. Everyday the commuter train she rides takes her past the house where she had lived with her husband, now exhusband. Tom still lives in the house, with his wife Anna and their daughter, Evie. A few houses down lives Scott and Megan Hipwell, the perfect couple. Rachel doesn’t know them,...
Hollywood find source ideas from several directions: from novels, short stories, and even comic books, from historical events or biographies of remarkable people, from social crises and political unrest, and from old movies that they want to update for a modern audience. One favorite source are foreign movies that they want to translate for...
Perhaps the last thing the Harry Potter franchise needs is for me to sing its praises. Successful with both box office revenue and critical appreciation, these eight movies, based on seven books, have achieved a popularity that makes it doubtful that anyone reading this review has not already seen the movies. I imagine...
A couple weeks ago, I review Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ, the 1880 novel by Lew Wallace, and last week, I review the 1959 movie starring Charlton Heston. This was in preparation to this year’s remake, starring Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell. I anticipated this movie with tempered excitement, because most Hollywood remakes are...
In 1955, the American poet Allen Ginsberg published Howl and Other Poems. He published it with City Lights Books in San Francisco. In 1957, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the publisher, faced obscenity charges for publishing and distributing the book. The title poem, “Howl,” in particular was considered obscene. But it has since become a classic America...
This coming week will see the remake of Ben-Hur, the 1959 classic movie of revenge and redemption. Naturally, I’m curious of the remake, but I’m also wary. I want it to be good, but it seems doubtful that it could be Charlton Heston good. In anticipation of the remake, I read the original book...
