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Badlands (1973)
[See discussion under “My Diary” for July 9, 2014] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe
Kid, The
The title of the latest movie to come out of the Evil Empire is Disney’s “The Kid”, possibly because the filmmakers were afraid that people might confuse it with the Charlie Chaplin classic of 1921—though more likely because Disney’s appalling hubris just can’t bear not to have its loathsome name on everything it produces. The…
Wild Man Blues
Wild Man Blues by Barbara Kopple is a documentary about Woody Allen and a pickup band and their tour of Europe to play New Orleans jazz. The deal must have been for Barbara to come along and get lots of shots of Woody and Soon-Yi, suitable for tabloid TV, in exchange for making Woody look…
Pledge, The
In The Pledge Sean Penn (director) and Jack Nicholson (star) have teamed up to give us a portrait of the hero as “a drunk and a clown” — which has a certain appropriateness, I suppose. There’s even a part for Mickey Rourke here — to say nothing of cameo roles for such actors as Tom…
Absolute Power
Absolute Power is a typical product of the Clint Eastwood line of knock-off existentialist heroes: a vehicle, that is, for yet another mythologization of the high-plains-drifter/man-with-no-name anti-hero whom neither old Clint nor his devoted audience ever seems to get tired of. I got tired of it myself a long time ago, so I should probably…
Gladiator
Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, is the Saving Private Ryan of the second century. Its opening battle sequence is as electrifying in its way as that of Spielberg’s film, which may have influenced this one, particularly as Gladiator comes from Spielberg’s DreamWorks. It is also a handy demonstration of the foundation of Roman hegemony under…