U.S. journalist and classic film fan.
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From Russia with Love 1963
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
To me, the Sean Connery iteration of James Bond (the best one — feel free to fight me after school near the railroad tracks) has always been nearly synonymous with the dawn of the Kennedy administration. John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, Dr. No, the first Bond film, premiered in Britain in ’62, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those were high times in the Cold War. Both Bond and Kennedy were glamorous anti-Communists, battling the Soviets in…
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M*A*S*H 1970
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
If you are a certain age, you may have been aware of the helicopters before you knew what they were. Maybe there were there, in the background, as your family sat in front of the TV. Maybe you started to watch the program yourself.
That short sequence: the blades whirring, the acoustic theme from “Suicide is Painless,” sits on the personal soundtrack of millions.
So, it comes as a bit jarring when Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H begins with the same sequence,…
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Inside Llewyn Davis 2013
I'd follow the Coens to the gates of Hell at this point. Hell, I'm a defender of both INTOLERABLE CRUELTY and BURN AFTER READING, two films which most place at the bottom of their canon. This film, however, merits inclusion near the top--and shows an evolution of the filmmakers that began with A SERIOUS MAN and TRUE GRIT. Often criticized for viewing their own characters with cynicism and derision, the Coens are becoming increasingly humanist. Llewyn Davis suffers for his…
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The Transporter 2002
I would never argue this is a good movie. But I laughed more often than many comedies I've seen. Best sequence is when Statham returns to the Big Bad's house, does some of his suit-fu set to some Euro-funk wah-wah, steals a Mercedes and then turns DOWN the soundtrack using the car radio. That's good stuff. Extra star just for that.
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