Films

“Everything I learned I learned from the movies.”
–Audrey Hepburn

“Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.”
–Alfred Hitchcock

“Television: A medium. So called because it’s neither rare nor well done.”
–Ernie Kovacs

I will often hold that a book is superior to its movie (with rare exceptions), but I also will say that there are some damned fine visual productions out there, and a good many of them have happened before the year 2000. My goal here is to talk about some recent “good stuff”, some “avoid this lunacy” from across the years, and some great films and shows from the 20th century. After all, that’s when films were born, and it’s amazing to see how they’ve grown. Like all my reviews, they are presented on the main page as I post them; here, I list them in alphabetical order by title and year (in case there was a remake or alternative version), so that you might see if you recognize any that you’ve seen and wish to compare views.

Rating System

★★★★★     Best of the Best; highest rating. Something to howl about.

★★★★☆  Really good; worth exploring and revisiting. Anthropomorphic wolf’s-thumb up.

★★★☆☆  Pretty good; likely to be worth your time and interest. Read through the review to help you make up your own mind.

★★☆☆☆  A good effort; flawed in various ways, but might have some redeeming qualities to it.

★☆☆☆☆  Seriously flawed, for reasons stated in the review. This is likely time that I, personally, regret not being able to get back.

☆☆☆☆☆  Irredeemably, horrifyingly, devastatingly horrible. Should be destroyed. Worth inventing time travel to make sure it was never created in the first place. Run from it like your life depended on it. (This is a rating rarely issued. Yeah — something that bad.)