The Social Network

October 13, 2010

For the last two weeks, “The Social Network” has been number one at the box office. It’s also garnered uniformly excellent reviews, so naturally I have to put in my two-cents’ worth. I’m afraid I’m not nearly as enamored of the film as most of the critics have been.

Matinee

October 8, 2010

This week, I saw “Matinee,” a 1993 homage to all of those cheesy monster flicks that terrified me when I was a child. I remembered enjoying the movie when it first came out and wouldn’t have thought to see it again, except that Joe Dante, the director, was on-hand to introduce the film and participate in a q & a afterwards.

I enjoyed “Matinee” immensely, not the least because it accurately portrayed what it was like to go to Saturday matinees when I was a kid, complete with popcorn tossed in the air, tee shirts soaked with soda pop, and boys running wild in the aisles.

Remains of the Day

September 28, 2010

A few weeks ago, my satellite provider gave me a wonderful gift—three free months of the Encore channels. That means I have temporary access to many of my favorite films made during the last decade or two. Merchant/Ivory’s 1993 adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day falls into that category. In fact, I’d go so far as putting it on my list of top ten movies of all time.

Why? Because there’s not a bad scene in it.

Easy A

September 23, 2010

The list of movies I want to see right now—well, there is no list. That’s why I skipped my review last Thursday. This week, though, in a fit of desperation, I decided to try out “Easy A.” Some critics seemed to like it, and how could I resist a film that promised a humorous update on The Scarlet Letter?

My Love Affair

September 14, 2010

I lost my heart in 1980. The object of my affection, a dumb terminal, lived in a small room around the corner from my office in Ross Hall, the building that housed the English Department at Iowa State. The university gave each of us faculty members $100 worth of free computer time to do with what we would.

How could I resist?

The American

September 9, 2010

We’re definitely in the doldrums movie-wise if “The American” is number one at the box office this week. I saw the film one ninety-five-degree afternoon, not because I had high hopes, but because I was desperate for some relief from the heat.

Cooling my heels was not nearly a good enough reason to waste eight dollars and 103 minutes of my time.

Gone Fishing

September 6, 2010

My motivation to write has nosedived, especially after I spent most of last week in Cleveland. Granted, it’s only a two-hour drive from Columbus, and there’s no time change. So that can’t be the reason why I’m suddenly besieged by an attack of the lazies.

The weather is cool, and that’s supposed to be energizing, right?