EppsNet Archive: Movie Reviews

EppsNet at the Movies: Gravity

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As a kid, one of my hobbies was card tricks. When I started learning card tricks, I had the misconception that the quality of a trick was proportional to how difficult it was to perform. Hard tricks = good, easy tricks = lame. Today I can perform exactly zero card tricks. I don’t remember even one. What I do remember though is the general principle that the quality of a trick depends on the effect – what the audience sees – and not at all on how the trick is done. An audience doesn’t know or care if you’ve practiced a trick for years or if you just learned it five minutes ago. The principle applies to things other than card tricks. You can read on IMDb and elsewhere about the technological challenges that had to be overcome in making Gravity. The state-of-the-art cinematography and visual effects would not have… Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: City Lights

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Could there be a more perfect ending to a film? I’m a sap for a great ending, so I don’t even care that there were maybe a couple of moments where I caught myself thinking “This bit hasn’t really held up well over time.” Rating: City Lights Director: Charles Chaplin Cast: Charles Chaplin (as Charlie Chaplin) A Tramp, Virginia Cherrill A Blind Girl, Florence Lee Her Grandmother, Florence Lee The Blind Girl’s Grandmother IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: The Monuments Men

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This movie is getting killed on Rotten Tomatoes — 34 percent as I write this. Granted, it’s not in 3-D, doesn’t have robots or aliens or other really fake-looking bullshit, and despite being set during World War II, has only a minimal amount of violent action. (If you like that kind of thing, fear not! We were shown previews for Pompeii, Spiderman, X-Men, some Tom Cruise sci-fi thing . . . rest assured there’s plenty of crap in the pipeline.) The Monuments Men tells an interesting story in an entertaining way, with memorable scenes and characters, and the best female role I’ve seen in a movie since Come Back, Little Sheba. Rating: The Monuments Men Director: George Clooney Cast: George Clooney Frank Stokes, Matt Damon James Granger, Bill Murray Richard Campbell, Cate Blanchett Claire Simone IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Singin’ in the Rain

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We saw Singin’ in the Rain on Netflix this weekend. Why this film is so beloved is a mystery to me. It feels thrown together, like someone took a bunch of unrelated songs and wrote a plot around them. Which in fact is what they did. And the songs aren’t that great either. In particular, “Singin’ in the Rain” is not a great song . . . the melody is boring and it’s not a great lyric. The Cyd Charisse sequence seems to have been dropped in from a different movie. The Music Man is better. Mary Poppins is better. The King and I is better. My Fair Lady is better. That’s just off the top of my head. The Wizard of Oz is better, but I’m not sure that counts as a musical. Great dance numbers though. Singin’ in the Rain Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly Cast: Gene Kelly… Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

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When you are young, your potential is infinite. You might do anything, really. You might be Einstein. You might be DiMaggio. Then you get to an age where what you might be gives way to what you have been. You weren’t Einstein. You weren’t anything. That’s a bad moment. Chuck Barris was way ahead of his time in recognizing how many Americans are willing to make an ass of themselves on television. The tone of the movie is inconsistent — is it a comedy? a thriller? a tragedy? — but it’s entertaining. Thus: Recommended! Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Director: George Clooney Cast: Sam Rockwell (Chuck Barris), Drew Barrymore (Penny), George Clooney (Jim Byrd), Julia Roberts (Patricia Watson) IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Mother

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We rented Mother from Netflix. As I explained to my family before screening it, the movie’s about a crazy Asian woman and her devotion to her mentally challenged son. “You can see why it resonated with me,” I said. “It’s like someone made a movie about our lives!” “You are not a nice person,” my wife said. “Our boy is not crazy.” “No, you’re crazy,” the boy corrected her. “I’m mentally challenged.” That said, I enjoyed the movie, although it contains a lot of profanity, which I don’t like. Director: Cast: IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →

HW’s Movie Reviews: 42

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Look at this — before Jackie Robinson, they didn’t let black guys play major league baseball! Right . . . that was 70 years ago, in the 1940s. Let’s move on already. You know what else they did in the 1940s? They rounded up Japanese Americans, just took them right out of their homes and their jobs, and stuck them into “relocation camps.” When’s the last time you heard a Japanese person talk about relocation camps? They don’t talk about relocation camps because they’re too busy being engineers and doctors and businessmen and raising their families and sending their kids to top universities. You can focus your mind on what other people did a long time ago or you can focus your mind on what you’re doing right now. Let’s move on already. Rating: Footnote: We’ve come full circle on blacks in baseball. The defending World Series champion San Francisco… Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Babette’s Feast

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Babette’s Feast (1987) Directed by Gabriel Axel. With Stéphane Audran, Bodil Kjer, Birgitte Federspiel, Jarl Kulle. There comes a time when our eyes are opened and we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions. And lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us. And everything we rejected has also been granted. This movie brought a lot of joy to my weekend. Highly recommended! Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Arthur Christmas

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Now I know how Santa delivers all the presents in one night! By the way, if you like to avoid the crowds, Thanksgiving night is a great time to go to the movies! Everyone’s either in a food coma or resting up for Black Friday shopping. We went to the 9:30 show at the Irvine Marketplace. There was no ticket line, no one in the lobby, one girl working the box office and one at the snack bar. The box office girl had to work double because there was no ticket taker on duty. Instead of just selling the tickets and handing them to us, she also tore them in half and said, “You’re in Theater 2.” “We’re in Theater 2,” I repeated for the boy’s benefit. “Are you sure she didn’t say we’re the only two people in the theater?” he asked. Recommended! Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Day for Night

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Day for Night (1973) Directed by François Truffaut. With Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Valentina Cortese.. A movie about making a movie . . . The director says, “Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point, you just hope to survive.” Highly recommended! Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies: Out of the Past

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Kathie Moffat: Oh, Jeff, I don’t want to die! Jeff Bailey: Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I’m gonna die last. The absence of sentimentality is essential to the film noir. Everyone was so young in this one: Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas. Great black-and-white cinematography and a classic final scene with the girl and the kid at the gas station. Rating: Five stars (out of five) Read more →

HW at the Movies: Hall Pass

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Are you kidding?! I’d rather take a shower with my mom than watch this crap. Only an idiot who knows nothing about life thinks that being married or unmarried has anything to do with happiness. You’ll be just as miserable either way, albeit for different reasons. Read more →

EppsNet at the Movies

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Thanks to Netflix, I’m catching up on movies that I never got around to seeing. It’s a long list because I don’t see a lot of movies. Almost Famous With the exception of the boy’s mom, there aren’t any interesting characters in this movie. It’s like spending two hours with uninteresting people. The Lester Bangs character doesn’t count because Lester Bangs was an actual person who was interesting in real life. You don’t get credit as a writer/filmmaker for creating an interesting Lester Bangs character. Cameron Crowe seems to have learned his directorial style from an Olive Garden commercial. Great soundtrack. Rating: Blah. The Big Lebowski Look at the scene and ask yourself “Is it dramatic? Is it essential? Does it advance the plot? Answer truthfully. If the answer is “No” write it again or throw it out. — David Mamet This movie has interesting characters and snappy dialogue. I… Read more →

EppsNet Movie Reviews: Slumdog Millionaire

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Good story, good music, brilliant editing and cinematography. One of the things I don’t like about movies is that conflict, even in feel-good movies about love and destiny, is too often resolved with violence, whereas much of the dramatic tension in real life stems from the number of people you’d like to physically assault but can’t. Rating: Four stars (out of five). Read more →

EppsNet Movie Reviews: Gran Torino

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It’s sad to see Clint Eastwood get old but somebody’s got to do it. It seemed to me as far back as Unforgiven and In the Line of Fire that while other actors were trying to stay artificially young forever, no one else was putting on screen an honest portrayal of what it’s like to be an old man, what it’s like to feel yourself diminished. And that was 15 years ago, when Eastwood was in his early 60s. He’s now 78 and looks it. I was trying to think of another leading actor who’s doing roles where the central fact about the character is that he’s gotten old and tired and scared . . . Robert De Niro? No, he’s still doing the same cops and mobsters roles he’s been doing for decades. Al Pacino? Dustin Hoffman? No. Same roles, plus they’re both around 70 years old with absurd… Read more →

My Dog Reviews Marley and Me

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I love movies about dogs! Wait — is Owen Wilson in that? I HATE Owen Wilson! Whenever I meet a new bitch at the dog park, the first thing I ask her is “Do you think Owen Wilson is funny?” And if she says yes, I am OUTTA there. Rating: Two paws down. — Lightning Read more →

HW’s Movie Reviews: The Dark Knight

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It was a sickness: this great interest in a medium that relentlessly and consistently failed to produce anything at all. People became so used to seeing shit on film that they no longer realized it was shit. — Charles Bukowski, Hollywood Haven’t seen it. Might see it . . . not sure yet. I’ve seen the trailer though and I’ll tell you something: Heath Ledger is TERRIBLE! That’s not acting! Put the same makeup on somebody else, give ’em a script, let ’em read the same lines . . . there’s a million people who could do the same thing. You don’t think so? You don’t think Heath Ledger knew that? Why do you think he’s dead of an overdose? Read more →

Crazy Eddie’s Movie Reviews

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Entertainment for mental patients I was a student at Cal State Fullerton in 1976 when Ed Allaway went berserk, shooting nine of his co-workers in the university library, killing seven. Read more →

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