The Runcible Blog

My eyes almost rolled out of my head while watching W. last night. Oliver Stone never fails to deliver the kind of dialog that bludgeons the viewer with his point. In this case, the point is that George Bush is a well-meaning buffoon deluded by a need for fatherly validation and misguided by the idealogues surrounding him. There you go; save yourself the 2 hours. The script includes a lot of real quotes from the characters (many cut and pasted ......
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The Prestige is much better than I thought it would be. I had resisted seeing it when it came out two years ago because I had recently seen The Illusionist and assumed that "The Prestige" would be another silly romance with magicians. Boy, was I wrong. There are some great nuggets in this film, including David Bowie as Nicola Tesla, the Tesla/Edison side story, a decent performance from Scarlett Johansson, and the twist at the end. The writing doesn't pander ......
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(I had started to write a rather scathing review of Into the Wild a week or so ago, but my computer's battery died at some point before I hit save [why didn't I hit save earlier? I should know better]. Now, the forgettable review joins the forgettable movie somewhere in the rear of my brain. I do remember that the tone of the film felt way off from what it should've. It played like a montage of a kid's journey ......
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Although it seemed promising at first glance, maybe I won't see Fur after all: While Kidman is as exquisite as ever, her alabaster complexion and statuesque carriage are the opposite of Arbus’s dark features and small frame. Maggie Gyllenhaal, who was so good in ‘‘Secretary,’’ might have made more sense. But the mania for Kidman continues — Hollywood will put her in anything. I await the possibility of seeing her as Frederick Douglass. From the Globe's review....
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I bought an issue of American Cinematographer the other night. Since it's produced by the ASC guild itself, much of the magazine has to do with the craft of cinematography as practiced by its members. Some of the technical jargon is unfamiliar to me — for instance, I don't know about the different types of lenses or aspect ratio choices, and I haven't figured out why they refer to apertures as T2.8 instead of f2.8 — but I try to ......
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I think the main reason why Hotel Rwanda received such rave reviews is that it's hard to give a bad review to a movie that deals with real-life genocide that happened only 10 years ago. I mean, how insensitive can you be? Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot from the movie. I just disliked the stinky acting and heavy-handed writing. Aside from Don Cheadle's decent performance as Paul Rusesabagina, everyone else either overacted, didn't know how to act, ......
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A car burns on Bennington St. The old man and I went to see Mystic River Saturday night. It was wicked pissa. I especially enjoyed hearing all the culaful accents. Oh, those actors tried so haaaahd to mimic the Boston vernaculaah, so I shouldn't criticize them too much. But, man, were those brutal attempts. Laura Linney (Annabeth Markum) should win the academy award for worst accent. She sounded like she had just gotten off the boat from Cliched-Irish/Catholic-ville. (boy, that ......
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