The Writer's Poke

On the surface, Match Point seems like it's going to replay the Crimes and Misdemeanors script. Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a semi-pro tennis player who has decided he can't make it on touring circuit. As a result, he becomes a tennis instructor for the well-to-do at a London club. When we first see him, I think we're supposed to get the idea that he's playing the game -- not tennis, but social climbing. With a little luck, he can get in with a wealthy family. That's what ends up happening. He marries the sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), of one of his tennis club students, Tom (Matthew Goode). Does he love Chloe? Or does he simply accept that marrying into the family is what he needs to do to move up in the world? Chloe seems like a nice enough woman. She's by no means ugly, but I'm sure we're supposed to see her as plain, especially when she's compared to Nola (Scarlett Johanson). Nola is really the woman that Chris lusts after, but her problem ...

A lot can happen in one summer in Barcelona.  If you're two young American women, perhaps visiting Europe takes you out of your day-to-day routines. This may give you a chance to see yourself and your life from a new perspective.  Vicky (Rebecca Hall) wasn't the type to get swept up in romance and fantasy. She had her normal life planned out. She was getting married to an average, successful man. He will provide for her economically, as her 2-carat engagement ring testifies.  Christina (Scarlett Johansson) was the type that didn't know what she wanted. She only knew what she didn't want. She was much more open to experimentation and didn't feel the need to conform to society's box. If a strange Spanish man invites her to go away for the weekend, she will be open to the offer.  When they meet Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a "bohemian" painter, Christina is immediately attracted. He seems dangerous, maybe a little intoxicating. Romantic. Vicky sees him a...

  The story is lean. The run time is only 84 minutes, and the plot is just about the same -- the 84 minutes before the noon train arrives. A lot of clocks everywhere, too, to remind you just how close to noon things are getting...  At the beginning of the story, Kane (Gary Cooper) and Amy (Grace Kelly) get married. It's a Sunday morning, but they just have a small civil ceremony. Their plan is to go to a new town and run a store. That means Kane has resigned being Marshal, but for some reason his replacement won't arrive until Monday.  Then they find out that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is going to be on the noon train, and three of his buddies are already in town waiting for him. The four of them are surely going to kill Kane, because Kane had arrested Miller and Miller had been sentenced to death, only to be pardoned by bureaucrats.  Kane looks for men to help him face Miller and his friends, but no one in town will step up. He seeks help at the saloon, the church...

The first time I watched Doctor Zhivago was about 30 years ago. A friend picked the movie, and I watched it over at his house with his parents. For whatever reason, they kept the volume very low, and I never bothered asking them to turn the volume up. As a result, I missed out on a lot of the dialogue, didn't follow what was going on in the plot, and got totally confused on who the characters were. Regardless, even though I was maybe 21 or 22 years old, I don't think I was the right age for this film to fully appreciate it, even if I could have heard what was going on.  Now that I'm in my 50s, and I have a little bit of life experience behind me, it's much easier for me to tap into what these characters were going through -- not that I've ever been through a World War and a Communist Revolution, but I'm maybe better at comprehending the idea of what people will do to survive, and how some people will cling to the idea that life is about more than just surviving....

As a "who done it," I'm not sure it comes as much of a surprise who done it, or even why. That said, I thought the movie told an unusual story in an unusual way.  The beginning is the end, really. The film opens with a man getting shot. Soon enough we will learn that the man is Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott). He's the person Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) buys the property from for what will become her first restaurant.  That's all getting ahead of the story, though. Mildred ends up at the police station because when he's shot, she's married to Monte. She sits in the station telling the detective her life story. That is the movie.  Mildred's whole deal is that she will do anything for her children. Unfortunately, her oldest daughter, Veda (Ann Blyth), turns out to be an amoral spoiled brat. Are we to blame Mildred for how she turned out? Veda's dad, Bert (Bruce Bennett) more or less implies that Mildred is to blame. His view is that Mildred doesn...

This movie has one or two more twists than you probably think it will have, and they all pretty much works.  When I'm watching a "mystery thriller," I don't want to feel cheated, and withholding information or tricking the viewer in some fashion makes me feel cheated. I don't feel cheated watching Wild Things. The only "cheat" I can maybe point out is when the music "leads" you to think in a specific direction. If you watched the movie super close, you might be able to see a character act in a certain way when no one is looking that wouldn't make much sense if you thought about it, but I don't have any specific scenes in mind to point out. Overall, the coherence and integrity of the plot is good. The first hour is played straight, and then everything turns. As you watch the first hour, see if you can figure out the turn, and remember, it's going to be "turns," not just "turn." I do wonder why Denise Richards isn...

This movie had people crying in the theater at one point. I heard multiple people trying to control their sobs.  * When I was looking to buy tickets last weekend, I knew I wanted to see this film in IMAX, but the closest IMAX theaters were already almost fully booked. So, I thought, surely there will be less demand midweek. But it turns out that even the Tuesday 10 p.m. screening, the one I went to, was packed. Who are all these people? I wondered. And why are they so interested in The Odyssey? I still remember being a Graduate Student at the University of Mississippi 25 years ago. One of my jobs then was to assist a Professor with his World Literature class. This is when I first really studied The Odyssey, and while I loved it, I don't remember the undergrads in the class being overly thrilled about it. The story was there on the page, but it doesn't as easily "come to life" as Nolan's vision of it does.  And so, my thoughts about the audience I was watching the ...