Tag: Trevor Lynch

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Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life, 1960) is one of the most hailed and fêted films of all time. It was both a commercial and a critical success. It had an immediate and enduring influence on film, fashion, and popular culture in general. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1960. It was nominated for four Oscars and won Best Costume Design. Nino Rota’s music is also iconic. To this day, La Dolce Vita is regularly included in lists of the greatest films of all time. (more…)

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I can just imagine Woody Allen’s elevator pitch for Blue Jasmine: “Imagine Streetcar Named Desire, only Blanche du Bois was married to Bernie Madoff.” Yes, Blue Jasmine (2013) is derivative. Yes, it is derivative of a classic, to which it will inevitably be compared and found wanting. But for all that, it is an excellent film and belongs among Woody Allen’s best. (more…)

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When I was young, I saw most of Woody Allen’s early movies in bits and pieces on television: Sleeper, Bananas, Annie Hall, Love and Death, etc. There were funny bits, but mostly I found them vulgar and stupid. And Woody Allen himself was repulsive. “What a nerd,” I thought. “Won’t this guy shut up?” I wondered. “What’s wrong with this guy?” (more…)

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The Boys in the Boat is a sports film, the true story of the eight-man crew team from the University of Washington in Seattle that won the gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The themes are athleticism, teamwork, mentorship, and the struggle for excellence, with several gripping race sequences. (more…)

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There aren’t a lot of good movies these days. Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders is the best new film since Todd Field’s Tár, which came out in 2022. The Bikeriders is set in the Chicago area in the mid-to-late sixties. It tells the story of the Vandals Motorcycle Club.

The movie is based on Danny Lyon’s book of photographs, also called The Bikeriders, about a real-life club called the Outlaws. Lyon also recorded interviews with the club, and some of the script is simply copied verbatim from Lyon’s tapes.

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I enjoy stories about intelligent people solving problems, hence my love for detective and espionage dramas, elements of which also spill over into the best superhero and science fiction. For instance, my favorite fictional character is Sherlock Holmes, who is not only a detective but does favors for British intelligence in the person of his brother Mycroft, plays superhero to Professor Moriarty’s supervillain, and of course employs science, both real and fictional.

I have always loved James Bond movies, but more for the action and spectacle than for the displays of intelligence work. (more…)

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Frank Herbert’s original novel Dune (1965) is a brilliant synthesis of the futurism of science fiction and the archaism of fantasy literature. Denis Villeneuve’s continuing film adaptation Dune: Part Two is now in theaters. It is a bit better than the first part, but has all the same problems, and a few new ones, so I can’t recommend it. Like the first part, it is not terrible, just mediocre: dull to my eyes, grating to my ears, trying to my patience, an insult to my intelligence, and worst of all: just another Hollywood attack on white people. (more…)

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At the age of 83, Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki is the greatest creator of animated films since Walt Disney. But Miyazaki is not resting on his laurels. Instead, just last year he released The Boy and the Heron, his 12th feature film. The Boy and the Heron was released in Japan in July of 2023 and worldwide in December, so it is still playing in theaters in some areas.

The Boy and the Heron has many elements of Miyazaki’s other films. It especially reminds me of my favorite, My Neighbor Totoro (1988). (more…)

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John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, is a classic drama about three white prospectors searching for gold in the wilds of Mexico. Since the movie is older than most of my readers, I feel free to summarize key plot elements, but I will leave plenty of surprises.

The movie begins in Tampico, Mexico in 1925. Treasure was one of the first Hollywood films to be shot on location outside the United States and makes excellent use of local color. Humphrey Bogart plays Fred Dobbs, an American migrant laborer in Mexico. (more…)

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Bradley Cooper is a superb actor and director. I loved his A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga. So when I heard that Cooper was starring in and directing Maestro, a biopic about composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, I had to see it.

Maestro is a masterful work of acting and directing. Bradley Cooper really brings Leonard Bernstein to life. Carey Mulligan is also superb as Bernstein’s wife Felicia. Indeed, there are no weak performances. The sets and costumes are meticulous. (more…)

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Disney’s six-part miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi is so bad I was certain it was the work of Jar Jar Abrams. But no, it is the creation of someone named Deborah Chow.

Disney’s first Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, got off to a promising start. But I feared it was running out of ideas when the story kept returning to Tatooine. Another series, The Book of Boba Fett, never left Tatooine, and the Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries begins and ends there. Tatooine rips off a lot from Arrakis, but sorry, it is not the most important planet in the universe. (more…)

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I was surprised at how much I liked Disney’s live action Star Wars series Andor, so I watched the Mouse’s next Star Wars series, Ahsoka. It was a trudge across vast, dreary plains of pulp, nostalgia, and estrogen-sodden wokeness — punctuated with peaks of genuine magic and drama.

The character of Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano, an orange-skinned alien, was created by George Lucas and Dave Filoni and first introduced in the 2008 animated film The Clone Wars, which focused on her relationship with Anakin Skywalker. (more…)

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Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is a bad movie, but not a terrible one. There are legions of nerds complaining about how Scott got this or that historical detail wrong. Honestly, that’s beside the point. Even if Scott didn’t know Saint Helena from Elba, he could still have made a great movie.

Everyone has heard of Napoleon. But what’s so great about Napoleon? Any film about Napoleon needs to answer that question. But in nearly three hours’ screen time, Scott fails to do so. (more…)