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MOVIE GUIDE: G
Gallipoli (1981, Peter Weir)
Haunting WWI movie (one of the few) has everything going for it -- superb writing and photography, a stunning finale. But Mel Gibson was annoying even in 1981. (B+)
The Game (1997, David Fincher)
A truly odd Hollywood film about Michael Douglas getting involved in a "game" (based on the actual Game, sort of a twisted geeky Road Rules) features some enormously creepy and intriguing sequences and superb technical work from Fincher, but after all the false endings it gets to be a bit too much, and ends with a whimpering copout that, as Mike Nelson said, belongs in a Huey Lewis video. Still fun, with Douglas' usual shitty yuppie act and the very Hollywood disintegrated-marriage subplot not too much of a problem for this kind of a story. Silly, slightly whimsical, mostly just... weird. (B)
RELATED: Zodiac review
Gandhi (1982, Richard Attenborough)
Mammoth enlightened epic in the David Lean tradition is as disengaged as such films usually are, but Attenborough keeps this behemoth moving, and the pacing combined with Ben Kingsley's outstanding lead performance provides a film that is always interesting, quite educational, and never dull, despite its extravagant length. (B+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: Mark Evanier on spoilers
Garden State (2004, Zach Braff)
Amateurish, namby-pamby sensitive boy stuff does have a certain charm -- it's likable enough, but so was POLTERGEIST. It's also built on a reasonably good idea and even features a few strong visual moments. But Braff's lead performance is largely execrable, the Natalie Portman character is insanely annoying, the "emotional climax" attempts are ludicrous until the last couple of minutes, when one finally surrenders, and the whole air of magic/surrealism is a complete failure. Widespread comparisons to THE GRADUATE are laughable. Watch a few movies before you make one, Zach. (C+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: 2005 movie preview / summer movie preview / B.S. I Love You review / Sabrina review
The General (1927, Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman)
Although the reputation is accurate and this is still hilarious after eighty years, what really strikes you about it is both its succinct, minimalist narrative clarity and the outlandish acrobatics; the sense of adventure is stronger than in any straightfaced action film made today. Except for one annoying missed joke opportunity in the last shot, this lives up to the lofty claims made for it. (A-)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: new AFI list / Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool + William K. Everson
Get Back (1991, Richard Lester)
The Lester style deadened down to nothing, or close, in this humdrum documentary of Paul McCartney's humdrum 1990 world tour. Skip. (C)
Gettysburg (1993, Ronald Maxwell)
If you'd like to make three hours pass by like they were fourteen... (D+)
long amusing anecdote / MENTIONED: 1000th post
Ghost (1990, Jerry Zucker)
Stupid, stupid, stupid "romance" film has the fine comedy director Zucker stooping to appalling levels of cliché. 128 shitty fucking minutes of dead Patrick Swayze trying to fuck live (?) Demi Moore. Maudlin pap from evil writer Bruce Joel Rubin. (D)
MENTIONED: Ghost & Mrs. Muir review
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
A woman moves into an old house and begins to fall in love with a ghost who resides there. Much of Mankiewicz's script here is sitcom-level goofiness, and Rex Harrison's portrayal of the swashbuckling ghost in question could not be more obvious and boring. But it's a genuinely haunting idea, and in atmospheric terms, Mankiewicz is able to run with it; there are some moments of real resonance, generally accompanied by Bernard Herrmann's excellent music. Yet for the most part, this one just feels like a missed opportunity, even from the man who was supposedly one of the great "woman's directors." Maybe if they'd gotten someone with talent instead of Gene Tierney... (B)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / RELATED: A Letter to Three Wives review / The Haunting review
Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman)
Bill Murray is particularly good in what could in theory have been the ideal escapist comedy; unfortunately, it's just slightly too overblown to really deliver on its promise. It's still a pretty delightful movie, with many inspired moments, and much better than most of the other "effects comedies" of the '80s. (B+)
MENTIONED: wuzzon #7
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996, Rob Reiner)
Obvious, manipulative attempt at social relevance by Reiner is watchable, following the story of Myrlie Evers avenging the murder of her husband, civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Whoopi Goldberg is OK, Alec Baldwin preens, James Woods is fairly good but not a tenth as scary as the real Byron De La Beckwith; the cartoonish way racist losers are portrayed in movies like this is tiring in its resistance to the disturbing core of their evil hatred. Anyway, nothing can overcome the trite script. (C-)
Ghost World (2001, Terry Zwigoff)
Talented documentary director Zwigoff scores big on his first narrative feature with a multilayered, vivid, cynical, and relentlessly witty comedy that strikes a tenuous balance between accessibility and art. Thora Birch is phenomenal as an isolated, aimless high school graduate who drifts away from her best friend (Scarlett Johansson, who practically sells the picture on her own) and begins a relationship with the man who almost unavoidably represents her future, a lonely fortysomething geek who collects blues records, played with unusual ease by Steve Buscemi. The only problem is the ending, which -- while not bad in itself -- runs away from the problems presented instead of doing something with them. (A-)
MENTIONED: The Ring review / Sideways review / Love on the Run review / 2006 movie preview / Scoop review
Giant (1956, George Stevens)
Do you really think I would subject myself to the torture of trying to summarize this? (B-)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: typeface discussion / A Place in the Sun review
Gigi (1958, Vincente Minnelli)
This is one of those movies that I don't think will survive as anything but an antique into the new millennium, and it's not just because I don't tend to care much for musicals. It's just lifeless, the kind of thing that doesn't communicate with me on any level. And this won Best Picture in the year that VERTIGO (not nominated) was released, but that's a comment not on the film but on the Oscars. Anyway, the audience for this is a dying breed. And boy, does it suck. (D-)
MENTIONED: animation rant / Dogville DVD review / oscar noms
The Girl Can't Help It (1956, Frank Tashlin)
But if you think I'm being too hard on a world to which I can't relate with GIGI, here's what many consider the definitive rock & roll film... and it's a huge disappointment. Its visual insights into the excitement of the form I love above nearly all other forms of expression are rare, its comprehension of the culture it attempts to define half-assed and rife with boorish caveman banalities. Look, I love seeing the Platters, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino, and Little Richard in widescreen; they are all beautiful people and brilliant musicians and I would love seeing them in almost any context. And I know Tashlin to be a gifted and smart person, but his understanding of rock & roll as exhibited here is rudimentary at best. No matter what Paul McCartney says. (C)
Girl, Interrupted (1999, James Mangold)
Nonlinear autobiographical book about a teenager's stay in an insane asylum is radically altered to fit a conventional Hollywood structure, but director Mangold gets fine performances out of Winona Ryder and well-deserved Oscar winner Angelina Jolie. He also does achieve a certain degree of authenticity (and dread), but it all seems to have been calculated more than inspired. (B)
Girls Town (1996, Jim McKay)
Obscure, largely improvised film about inner-city girls (from music video director McKay) and the way they cope with a friend's suicide is insightful, emotionally rich, and defiantly uncinematic. It's also strangely radical in its tiny suggestion that everybody's got the same weird shit going on underneath. The closing scene is lovely. (A-)
Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984, Peter Webb)
Totally inexcusable low point from the once-mighty Paul McCartney is a rich man's self-indulgence elevated to stirring, ghastly heights. He plays millionaire rock star Paul McCartney on the trail of "missing tapes" for his new album. Ringo's there too, and it doesn't help. McCartney has a certain knack for accidentally giving more credit to John Lennon for the Beatles than is necessary, because if there's one thing we do know, it's that Lennon would never have done something this cheap and cynical. Paul pens a couple of good new songs, including the brilliant "No More Lonely Nights" (a fine song precisely because it doesn't get lost in Paul's tiresome conflict about commercialism). But most offensive of all in a movie full of offensively twee sights and sounds are the Paul remakes of old Beatles songs. He got better after this, but at this point I think retirement might well have felt like the best idea. Honestly, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. (F)
MENTIONED: 50 bands assessed / Philip Norman's Paul McCartney rant
Gladiator (2000, Ridley Scott)
Too crappy to review. (D+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: Nurse Betty comments
Glen or Glenda (1953, Edward D. Wood Jr.)
Wood may have been a man full of bad ideas, but at least he did have a vague notion of what to do with those ideas, which is more than can be said for many critical darlings today. At least he tries to craft something of twisted psychological significance out of an internal/external sexual conflict. And at least the movie, beyond all else, is fun to watch. How can you look down on that, even if the script is horrible and technical competence thoroughly lacking? (B-)
MENTIONED: reaction to Charlie & the Chocolate Factory announcement
Glory (1989, Edward Zwick)
Unfairly declared a bust by many due to the casting of Matthew Broderick (he is actually very good, though I agree someone a bit more charismatic than Ferris Bueller might have been ideal), this is a fine Civil War drama about the first regiment of black soldiers and is at least a hundred times more entertaining than the detached, sickeningly routine GETTYSBURG. The devastating conclusion is perfect, and refreshingly in a film of this sort, the running time is just barely two hours. (A-)
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
I understand that this is the greatest movie ever made if you like to watch irresponsible characters you don't care about in the least slaughter people, beat each other up, and scream back and forth for three hours, all the midst of some vague and random claptrap about the importance of family attachment or some shit. I don't. I couldn't find a reason to connect with anything non-technical in this film and was in fact annoyed and eventually numbed by it. 175 minutes of dull self-satisfication, and while I don't mind gratuitous killing & gore in the least, I'm sorry, but this is a naively uncomplicated celebration of violence. And not even a fun one. (C+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / disappointments / RELATED: Part II review / MENTIONED: King Kong [33] review / gangster movies / review coming / Straw Dogs review / On the Waterfront review / Children of Men review / The Wild Bunch review / Goodfellas review / Ninotchka review / City of God review / The Professional review / Once Upon a Time in America review
The Godfather, Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
Despite the problems it inherits from its predecessor, this is a strong and exciting film, great storytelling full of character and life. Unlike the original, it doesn't overreach. As one film, the two might be something special, though questions about why anyone really cares about these people remain valid. (B)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / RELATED: Apocalypse Now review / MENTIONED: Goodfellas review
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1981, Jamie Uys)
Enjoyable but benign (despite title) comedy from Botswana, of all places, is practically engineered for U.S. consumption, and indeed, it was one of the most popular foreign films ever released. Interesting to see what it takes to earn a title like that. (B)
GoldenEye (1995, Martin Campbell)
Remington Steele is quite convincing as James Bond, if only because he seems like a total creep. Supposed '90s revitalization of the series doesn't do anything with it, but since every Bond film to date has been basically the same, I doubt there were many complaints. There's a reason it's so goddamn easy to throw this stuff out. (C-)
Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)
Many consider this the definitive Bond film, and it probably is; it's also deathly boring, like so many of the others in the series except even more so. Sean Connery's later comment that he personally would like to kill James Bond seems especially valid here. Nice theme song, though. (C)
MENTIONED: Chocolate War DVD announcement
The Gold Rush (1925, Charles Chaplin)
Fragments of a great mind at work -- the chicken setpiece, the harrowing house-on-cliff sequence, the Tramp listenin to his faraway lovely wail "Auld Lang Syne" -- but Chaplin really confined himself in the feature format, letting his ideas take him where they want but always far too willing to box himself in to make it all digestible and, in the end, far less effective than any given highlight would be on its own. (B+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / brief reaction
Gone with the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)
If this immortal film -- the peak of the Hollywood studio system and of David O. Selznick's output -- is an example of many things that shouldn't work which nevertheless do, it isn't by accident. Probably more manhours and hard labor and long Benzedrine nights went into the creation of this Civil War romance epic than into any other American film. And the energy is fully palpable, the final result totally disarming and absorbing. It really is a fascinating artifact, and one of the great movies of all time. (A+)
LISTED: best DVDs of year / RELATED: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review / MENTIONED: DVD announcement / Charlie & the Chocolate Factory pre-release rant 1 / benfolds.org nostalgia / Goodbye Mr. Chips review / Ghost & Mrs. Muir review / Nightmare Before Christmas anecdote / my migraines / Corpse Bride review / Real Life review / Birth of a Nation review / Mr. Smith Goes to Washington & Best Years of Our Lives reviews / A Streetcar Named Desire review / Children of Men review / Giant review / Guess Who's Coming to Dinner review / Ninotchka & Intermezzo reviews / Intermezzo correction / Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams / Gandhi review
Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939, Sam Wood)
Robert Donat gives this film a nuanced, lovely performance, but the movie fails to return the favor; poorly structured and falsely sentimental, the drama about a prim schoolteacher careens forward with great strength until it hits the perfect ending... then goes on for another eternity. (C)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / disappointments in 2005 / MENTIONED: MGM closing / Twilight Zone CG / Fanny & Alexander debate
Goodfellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
At first, Scorsese is on to something here; a highly subjective narrative that takes on Mob stereotypes and brings movie violence crashing down to its real counterpart. But the film, like most of its type, is far too long, far too dispassionately macho, and far too self-adoring. By the second hour, it's out of control with a sexist/masochist/evil streak of its own. But even I can't believe people actually preferred DANCES WITH WOLVES to this. (C+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: still need to see / Ninotchka review / City of God review / Once Upon a Time in America review
The Good German (2006, Steven Soderbergh)
It's easy to dismiss this as an excuse for achingly beautiful black & white cinematography in the style of 1940s Hollywood -- it was shot on the Warner backlot with old equipment -- but the story is gripping, the romance infectious, the mood appopriately noirish and muddy. Masterful entertainment with excellent performances by George Clooney, Tobey Maguire, and Cate Blanchett. (A-)
REVIEW / incredible poster / botched release / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: fall movie preview / want to see / still want to see / Kat bought me book
The Good Girl (2002, Miguel Arteta)
An unhappy woman working at a retail store, ignored by her pothead husband, finds herself drawn to a much younger man. Sad, moving film from the same team as CHUCK & BUCK (director Arteta and writer Mike White) creates a vivid atmosphere and crafts story and characters of greatly consuming complexity, with much great comedy along the way. Unfortunately, the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal is so one-dimensional, stereotypical, and hopeless (he calls himself "Holden") that he slightly offsets many of the miracles within this remarkable film. But that's okay. (A-)
REVIEW / MENTIONED: taping / Secret Lives of Dentists review / Heathers review / Knife in the Water review
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005, George Clooney)
Clooney's second film as director is the stark and well-told tale of Edward Murrow's televised confrontations with Joseph McCarthy. The one major flaw of this risky and entertaining film is that it seems to exist in a bubble, where no one outside the world of television is engrossed in the happenings of the McCarthy period. But the performances are beautifully understated and the whole thing comes together thanks to the visual brilliance of the production, photographed in glorious black and white. (A-)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / best of year / MENTIONED: upcoming movies / Narnia review / year in movies / oscar noms / intention to go see / review coming / fall movie preview
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone)
Although it has nothing on ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, this third entry in the Dollars series, despite its inflated reputation, is lots of fun, a great -- if overlong -- semi-retread of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Lee Van Cleef is the greatest. (B+)
MENTIONED: Stagecoach review
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1966, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
The only biblical epic you will ever need, this film is emotionally stirring enough not to make a believer out of you but certainly to make you admire the scope of those beliefs, in magnificent black & white. An outstanding film, the best thing they ever show on TBN. (A-)
The Graduate (1967, Mike Nichols)
I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. Hilarious, discomforting masterpiece -- scripted gracefully by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham -- of an aimless Dustin Hoffman post-college wandering into a torrid relationship with a much older woman (Anne Bancroft, in one of the best performances in American film) before Falling in Mad Irrational Love with her daughter. A challenge to everything, a portrait of inevitability, and a plea for individualism in a world so ready to crush it. At the time of its release, the movie was embraced by hippie sympathists as the Defining of a Generation, but the entire point is its rejection of that and all such cultish traps, hopeless romancticism included. The harder Benjamin fights, the more he unconsciously surrenders. The film's sense of cynicism and beauty are perfectly balanced, its subtly crushing finale a moment of dread and complexity to cheer forever. If not the greatest film ever made, the greatest portrait of youthful confusion, manipulation, and conformity in any medium to date. I'd wager it's incited more revolutions than Marxism... it's just that they were all internal. (A+)
DVD review / old DVD review / short review / crappy new DVD / new DVD announced / LISTED: most wanted on DVD / RELATED: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf review / MENTIONED: Rumor Has It announcement / endings / B.S. I Love You note / Barry Lyndon review / Harold & Maude review / Simpsons Season 6 DVD / Chinatown review / year in movies / favorite movie / B.S. I Love You review / Shoot the Piano Player review / Straw Dogs review / L.A. Story DVD review / Misery review / Butch & Sundance review / The Party review / Get Smart arrival / Fahrenheit 451 remake / 1000th post / Shopgirl review / Cool Hand Luke review
Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
Yeah, I know it's the premier classic of all world cinema and a great antiwar statement and I know the Nazis banned it and that makes it automatically good, but as beautiful as it is in scattered moments, it is still full of the same distant archetypes that mar the (considerably better) RULES OF THE GAME. Sorry, Film Lovers, but I will stick with ALL QUIET. (C)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / disappointments / RELATED: Rules of the Game review / MENTIONED: disappointed / Goodbye Mr. Chips review / Purple Rose of Cairo review / year in movies / La Dolce Vita review / Oldboy review / Stalag 17 review
The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)
Ford does a fine job here and so does the cast, particularly Henry Fonda, and the movie is unflinching for its time, but I found Steinbeck's novel a torturous bore and the film is only slightly more acceptable. Those who love the book may love it or may hate it. Others might consider it worthwhile for a one-time viewing for Fonda alone. (B-)
MENTIONED: The Lady Eve review
Grass (1925, Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack)
Cooper and Schoedsack's directorial debut is a documentary as exciting as KING KONG, following a tribe of nomads in what's now Iran on their annual journey across snowy terrain to take their animals back to fresh grass. It's harrowing, beautiful, and still impressively huge today. (A-)
REVIEW / top ten of week / LISTED: best of year / rated / RELATED: King Kong DVD
Grease (1978, Randal Kleiser)
Though not as pretentious or as romanticized as AMERICAN GRAFFITI, hideously simplistic musical vision of idyllic '50s youth in the years of leather jackets and the rhythm method lacks wit, purpose, and -- especially -- intelligence. Unforgivable on all counts save the sometimes charmingly stupid production design. The songs are all garbage. Even Happy Days had a sharper sense of irony. (D)
The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin)
If Chaplin's painfully funny, effortlessly moving plea for action against Germany amounts to propaganda, it sure beats THE ETERNAL JEW; as Hitler, the director gives the performance of a lifetime. And it is still lively enough to exude the kind of charm that makes one think we could not possibly have lost the war, and its message has resonance now as much as it ever did. And it's hilarious, by the way. (A)
reaction / RELATED: Modern Times review / MENTIONED: caught on TCM / The Gold Rush review / Life Is Beautiful review
The Great Escape (1963, John Sturges)
Irresistible classic action film about Steve McQueen and company's intricate escape from Nazi imprisonment is a delight for all of its three-hour running time; if anything, you want more when it's finished. Not much to it, but still worth seeing over and over; masterful filmmaking. (A)
MENTIONED: Chicken Run review
Great Expectations (1998, Alfonso Cuaron)
Largely ignored at the time of its release (although it was a minor commercial hit), this is one of the finest and most thrilling literary adaptations ever made, precisely because it takes a book that cannot be improved upon in any fashion and rather than attempting to duplicate it, simply captures its thematic spirit -- concentrating on the abortive romance of Pip and Estella, which of course is just one thread of the novel -- and crafts a damned fine, visually sumptuous movie, replete with Cuaron's usual wry comments on class division. Cast is magnificent (including the best role of Robert De Niro's career) -- that Gwyneth Paltrow received more recognition for the drab SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE than this says a lot about the American attitude toward cinematic imagination -- but the production itself is the real star, stunningly beautiful in all ways. (A+)
REVIEW / RELATED: chapter 14 / Children of Men reaction / Children of Men review / MENTIONED: literary adaptations / H2G2 review / 1000th post
The Great Gatsby (1974, Jack Clayton)
A fun movie, at least fun enough to make me seek out and really love F. Scott Fizgerald's novel. On revisiting the film it suddenly seemed far less interesting, but in and of itself it's still worth a look. (B)
The Great Mouse Detective (1986, Ron Clements/Dave Michener/John Musker)
It seems that Disney features since Walt's death are either bombastic or boring, and this certainly belongs to the latter camp. I'm amazed so many adults have managed to sit through (and admire) this overblown Sherlock-with-mice adaptation, much less children. Excellent animation at the climax, though, and hardly without charm. These days it would be kind of nice to see a cartoon so low-key. (B-)
The Great Muppet Caper (1981, Jim Henson)
Henson's marvelous staging and numerous gags are brilliant, offsetting a curiously stagnant plot and script. (B)
The Great Outdoors (1988, Howard Deutch)
You remember it as the dismal John Candy/Dan Aykroyd comedy with the bear. Having lived through it twice, I remember it as the fascist propaganda it really is. Mercifully short, yet even worse than the trailers indicated. (D)
Green Card (1990, Peter Weir)
There's something fun about imagining a romantic comedy from Peter Weir starring Gerard Depardieu, but neither the director nor the star come up with anything of significance except an unpleasant date movie. (C)
The Green Mile (1999, Frank Darabont)
I'm still waiting for the punchline that will hopefully explain why I spent three hours on this worthless piece of shit. Absolutely fucking abysmal. (D+)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / MENTIONED: golden globes / Darabont's Fahrenheit 451
Gremlins (1984, Joe Dante)
Crummy effects picture tries to fuse its smarmy self-awareness with some kind of a sense of wonder, but Dante has one of the heaviest hands in Hollywood and all we get is sludge. (C-)
Groundhog Day (1993, Harold Ramis)
Although it is a rather shameless ripoff of a much better film (L.A. STORY), this is genuine fun with, at times, a sense of glorious magic. Bill Murray is quite good as the everyweatherman who becomes caught in a mobius strip of a single endlessly repeated day in the life. The story lacks a beginning and an end, but the middle is wonderful. (A-)
REVIEW
Grumpier Old Men (1993, Howard Deutch)
Better than the original. Not as funny as reading National Review. (C)
Grumpy Old Men (1993, Donald Petrie)
Fun to see the stars. Not fun to hear their dialogue. (C-)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967, Stanley Kramer)
Well-intentioned self-congratualtory antique about interracial marriage between two perfect people is offensively weak and transparent, but Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (in his last screen appearance) make an enormous impression as the couple whose liberal compassion is called upon for their daughter's forbidden lurve. Dismal, but for Tracy's presence alone, a must one-time viewing. (C-)
REVIEW / MENTIONED: still need to see / In the Heat of the Night review
A Guide for the Married Man (1967, Gene Kelly)
Ponderous, self-satisfied edgy "satire" about finding the best ways to cheat on your wife. Well-made, with many interesting (if never side-splitting) setpieces, but too inherently mean-spirited and wrongheaded to come off as anything but depressing. (C+)
Gulliver's Travels (1939, Dave Fleischer)
The second full-length animated feature made in the U.S. is as vast a step down from SNOW WHITE as can be imagined. Jonathan Swift's classic is neutered and truncated until nothing remains except a condescending kiddie movie, sadly the first of many. Even today it's hard to imagine something this uninspired getting into theaters. (C-)
Gunga Din (1939, George Stevens)
Action-packed, as they say, and equipped with a few good laughs, but this prototype of the modern popcorn flick is just as numbing and dull as they are today, despite fine work from Cary Grant and a few enjoyable sequences. Except for the wonderful title sequence, nothing for the time capsule. (B-)
REVIEW / LISTED: rated / disappointments / RELATED: Shane review / A Place in the Sun review / MENTIONED: King Kong [33] review
The Guns of Navarone (1961, J. Lee Thompson)
This is one of those WWII movies that presents a more honest picture of the time in which it was made than of the war itself. It also loses nearly all of its (admittedly infectious) momentum around the 70-minute mark, after which it's laborious. (B-)
RELATED: Cape Fear review
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