Nancy Drew… Reporter movie review
One of the Warner Bros short features, aimed at young audiences, about the teen-girl detective’s adventures, though she’s cast as a rather interfering little brat. Still, it’s good clean fun for kids.
reviews by year
Harold and Maude movie review
Uplifting and unsentimental, with a fresh and warm appreciation for the eccentricities that make life interesting, this is probably the most charming movie about death that’s ever been made.
The Kennel Murder Case movie review
This is a nice bit of fun for classic mystery buffs, full of wisecracking reporters, nervous butlers, priceless Chinese treasures, and lots of double-breasted suits and fedoras.
Desperately Seeking Susan movie review
A new-fashioned screwball comedy combining improbable elements, from ancient Egyptian artifacts to downtown New York chic, with classic conceits like mistaken identity and romantic conundrums.
Bandit Queen movie review
The true story of a modern-day female Robin Hood of India. A powerful and in spots devastating journey through one woman’s conquest of a culture that views women as little more than sexual commodities.
Zachariah movie review
It’s Help! in the Old West, or The Quick and the Deadheads. This “electric western” musical comedy isn’t quite a hero’s journey, more a hero’s trip. It probably helps to be stoned.
Twister movie review: storm troopers
One of my very favorite movies, a superb example of the genus Popcorn Flick, unforgettable as it puts onscreen imagery we’ve never seen before. This is as close as I get to turning my brain off at the movies.
The Perfect Storm review: following bliss
An intense and terrifying man-against-nature action movie, and also an unsentimental and unclichéd drama about following your bliss: doing what you’re made to do even to the point of risking your life.
American Psycho movie review: bonfire of the inanities
Opens with Hitchcockian strings warp-warping as sticky red blood drips down a white screen… or is it blood? This touch of black whimsy isn’t the only one to be found here…
The Talented Mr. Ripley movie review: American psycho
Exquisitely understated, this is an instant classic, not in the sense that the word is typically applied to movies, but how we use the word to describe cars and clothes, embodying clean lines, subtle elegance, and a sense of timelessness.
