The Greatest Show on Earth (review)
It’s got baby gorillas, dogs riding horses, and Jimmy Stewart as a clown. Man, The Greatest Show on Earth is one fun flick.
Month: February 1999
An American in Paris (review)
As if there was any doubt that An American in Paris was nothing but an excuse for some fabulous singing and dancing, the film wraps up with a spectacular 18-minute ballet sequence. It’s got only the vaguest connection to plot or character, but it’s a gorgeous piece of filmmaking.
All About Eve (review)
From the snarky opening scene, I knew I was gonna love All About Eve. Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this is perhaps the first film with an attitude we today would call modern.
All the King’s Men (review)
Goodness me, this movie could not have been more prophetic had Nostradamus himself written it. All the King’s Men, based on Robert Penn Warren’s novel, is the story of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), a nobody from an unnamed state who rises from the mud of the backcountry to become governor. Along the way, there’s a succession of broads and dead bodies, the use of intoxicating substances and the bribing of state troopers. And finally, oh yeah, impeachment.
The Thin Red Line and The End of Violence (review)
To further emphasize this human disjoint from nature, religion enters the argument. One soldier laments that ‘the only thing permanent is death and the Lord,’ the god of humans, of course, whose supposed existence somehow elevates us above nature. Pvt. Witt is a big believer in eternity; he smiles as one of his comrades dies because he ‘knows’ the dying man is going to his immortality. First Sgt. Edward Welsh (a nicely modulated Sean Penn) is the lone voice of rationality (what idealists call cynicism). ‘There’s no other world,’ he says, ‘just this rock,’ but no one seems to pay him much heed.
