A SOFT SPOT: TWO SORT-OF FILM REVIEWS

July 21, 2022

But first, can I share a secret? It’s relevant. This is something I have never told anyone in my life before, not even Ellie, who knows everything about me, because I always found it acutely embarrassing. And here I am, about to say it out loud, in public. It’s a pleasure to be too old […]

Railway Men: A Film Review

May 9, 2014

I could not help but think of that other Burma Railway movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, directed by David Lean and based on the short story by the French writer, Pierre Boulle) as I watched The Railway Man the other day. The two…

12 Years a Slave

February 7, 2014

Despite its unquestionable power, I left this movie troubled as much by what I felt to be a false note as by its indictment of the cruelties of slavery, whose dreadful heritage still haunts the American conscience and scars the American soul.

Blue Jasmine, Fruitvale Station, and Me

August 14, 2013

(A review of Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” intended as a sequel to my recent post about “Fruitvale Station.”) What is it about Woody Allen and me? I went with friends to see Blue Jasmine, his new movie, this…

Fruitvale Station

August 13, 2013

We went to see Fruitvale Station last night. It’s based on the true story of Oscar Grant, who was dragged off a BART train in Oakland in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2009, and shot and killed by a BART police…

A Late Quartet – A Movie Review

March 25, 2013

We stumbled upon this marvelous film the other night. I was scrolling through my Apple TV movie selections and came upon this title, A Late Quartet, that rang a bell as having something to do with Beethoven. So we downloaded, and…

Two Artists, Two Films

October 1, 2012

Long-time readers will know that one of my central preoccupations as a writer has been the predicament of the artist who, for one reason or another, has been sidelined from the mainstream current of his day, and who struggles with