Oh yes, I liked THE BRIDE!, for my Seasoned Ticket column at the @scarecrowvideo.bsky.social website. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...
13.03.2026 21:41
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Oh yes, I liked THE BRIDE!, for my Seasoned Ticket column at the @scarecrowvideo.bsky.social website. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...
Just got back from seeing THE BRIDE! Hard to understand how anybody who loves movies can walk out of this thing without a big fat grin.
co-star Polly Draper, ably directed by the late Gary Winick (13 GOING ON 30/LETTERS TO JULIET). My review called it "a thoughtful story peopled with characters you enjoy spending time with," which sounds soft, but isn't nothing, either.
It seems we can conclude that a lot of people don't know how Tourette's works. Made me recall a movie on the subject, I guess forgotten: THE TIC CODE (1998), about a Tourette's kid (Christopher Marquette, excellent) who bonds with a jazzman (Gregory Hines), similarly afflicted. Nicely written by
any sense, and a general indulgence that includes allowing actors to flap around on their own. Premise might’ve made a snappy sitcom like a fast-talking 1930s picture. But no. Hopelessly Brooksian score by Hans Zimmer. Also Brooksian: As in THE SIMPSONS, the story is set in an unnamed U.S. state.
Had to catch up with ELLA MACCAY because any movie that poorly received must have something going for it. But not this one, it turns out. It plays like a series of discrete sketches, with a few one-liners that sound like one-liners, a central performance that could be something if the character made
There is no stopping it now, but the plague of NPR correspondents greeting each other with "Hey" grows more grating every day. (Does it come from early exposure to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD? That was the first time I ever heard someone use "hey" for "hello." I tried it myself for a while as a kid.)
Had a movie dream. Somehow involved watching a new Jarmusch film that ended with a low, sweeping shot across a beach. Movie ends and a woman turns to me and says, "He always was good with condiments." Condiments? Jarmusch? Probably true.
I wrote about Satyajit Ray's DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST, which plays @siffnews.bsky.social Uptown in Seattle, for the @scarecrowvideo.bsky.social website. What a beauty this film is. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...
Wish someone had told me how delightful Donald Fagen's EMINIENT HIPSTERS is. Had to stumble upon a slightly water-stained Little Free Library hardback copy to get the gist. Among other things, he claims the first recorded "Yowzah" takes place on a Boswell Sisters record from 1932. Excellent madness.
undoubtedly accounts for how often it pops up randomly in my mind 50 years later. It is pretty catchy. Nastiness with flutes. "Hear me talkin' now" - what the hell, rest in peace, Neil.
Weird that amid all of Neil Sedaka's cheerful pop goodies, the bitchy "Bad Blood" was his best-selling single. The Elton Effect had a lot to do with it (cf. "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night"). Unless you were alive in '75, you can't imagine how frequently the track was spun on Top 40, which
track, "1985," "Let Me Roll It," and the untouchable "Jet" are masterworks. The rest is, well, tuneful. Ho, hey ho.
Listened to "Band on the Run" LP for the first time in ages, having played it a few thousand go-rounds in the past. Really wanted it to defy the conventional wisdom that Macca's albums are a mix of rock-solid masterpieces and fill-in doodling. Nope. Despite fond memories, the title
Took a look at that McCartney doc for my Seasoned Ticket (that's Beatle reference) column at the Scarecrow website. roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/t...
"basically perfect": confirm.
Watched Wiseman's HIGH SCHOOL. The image of the camera tracking behind a teacher as he roams the hallways looking for students who should be in class (“Got a hall pass? Got a hall pass?”) is a perfect emblem of a particular era in American schooling, a Salinger or Heller character + mise-en-scene.
Interesting. Reminiscent of Patti Smith re-starting "Hard Rain" after a couple of verses during the Dylan Nobel ceremony - you sense that the room is different, changed by her emotional honesty, really hearing the song. There should be more of that in performing!
three-quarters of it, and their husbands, who delivered obligatory guffaws in counterpoint. They had never seen anything funnier in their lives, I guess, than Brando nervously brushing down his hair when he thinks a handsome young private is coming to see him." Shoot the audience! Glorious.
perhaps because it’s supposed to be 'funny' to see a man cry. The audience should have been taken outside and shot.
Indeed, the audience was perhaps the greatest problem with this very good film. It was filled with matrons, who found it necessary to shriek loudly and giggle hideously through
Thinking about Huston's rather remarkable film of REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE & happened on R. Ebert's appreciative 1967 review, where he's in fine pissed-off form: "There is a scene in which he [Brando] slowly breaks down and begins to cry, and his face screws up in misery. The audience laughed,
Returned to my frequently-in-hibernation radio show to survey this year's Best Original Score Oscar nominees. Got a couple of songs in there, too, even if they don't exactly fit the category. (The link will be live for a couple weeks.) voiceofvashon.org/episode/the-...
On HOW TO MAKE A KILLING, for the Scarecrow website. roberthorton.wordpress.com/2026/02/20/t...
In memory of owner Craig Wilson, former Queen Anne/Fremont rental shop Video Isle facilitated the donation of their extensive collection to Scarecrow this past weekend. Our largest donation ever!
Also, EX LIBRIS (2017) is one of Wiseman's best. This piece is originally from the Seattle Weekly. scarecrowvideo.org/posts/the-se...
Frederick Wiseman got greater as he got older, & MENUS-PLAISIRS – LES TROIGROS is one of the movies of the decade. It suggests that utopia is not where everything is perfect all the time but where people are talking to each other and working together to get things better. A Hawksian film.
Kinda jejune writing by (extremely youthful me), but Robert Duvall's directing debut ANGELO MY LOVE ought to be remembered. eightiesmovies.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/a...
one undeniably effective at – well – passing the popcorn, anyway (TOP GUN: MAVERICK) leaves behind the strong suggestion that having Tom Cruise as a full creative partner probably counts for a lot.
Finally saw F1. Completism here: It’s nominated for Best Picture, so one must watch it. And – yikes. This is not a good movie, even at the pass-the-popcorn level. One takeaway: The fact that Kosinski has made a couple of decent movies, one genuinely impressive as sci-fi (OBLIVION) and
Come to think of it, "Jesus stomps on El Diablo!" is like shorthand for Duvall's acting M.O.