They Were Expendable (1945)

[See discussion under “My diary” entry for July 26, 2012] Discover more from James Bowman Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email. Type your email… Subscribe

Anyone who is still familiar with Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” will find little to recognize in its Tim Burtonification as Sleepy Hollow. Burton has filled this bit of belletrist whimsy from the now almost-unimaginable past with his familiar, not to say trademark devices. All takes place amidst spooky landscapes in grey and black,…

A well-made film that teaches an obnoxious lesson

Hope Floats directed by Forrest Whitaker to a screenplay by Steven Rodgers is a feel-good movie selling a relatively innocuous version of the Hollywood dream—i.e. that all the world’s problems come from people, especially parents and children, not hugging each other enough and giving tongue to their feelings of love for each other. The other…

Still Crazy, directed by Brian Gibson from a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, also the writers of The Commitments, does about as good a job as it is possible to do with such predictable material as the reunion twenty years later of an aging 70s pop group. The recent Velvet Goldmine dealt…

At one point in Best Laid Plans, written by Ted Griffin and directed by Mike Barker, two recent college graduates have an intellectual conversation as they to the Tropico Recycling plant, where Nick (Alessandro Nivola) works, apparently to dispose of the body of a woman Nick killed. This he had done on behalf of his…