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“What exactly is Inside Daisy Clover trying to be? Semi-pornographic name aside, at any given moment, it operates as two or three different movies each trying, and failing, to achieve maximum attention. There’s a serious drama about a ragamuffin street urchin, a biting satire about the Hollywood st” read more
“For some reason, Disney does quite well in adapting Rudyard Kipling’s immortal stories of a young boy raised in the Indian jungle and his various animal friends and foes. This live-action version (for lack of a better term, as much of it is CGI) leans heavier on the Kipling source than the swingin” read more
Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice
“There’s still some hope for the future of the DC cinematic universe, but they’re going to have to start listening to the fans and maybe remove much of the power from Zack Snyder. It’s not that Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice doesn’t have interesting story ideas or unique spins on the myt” read more
“Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison plays like a lukewarm reheating of The African Queen, with most of the energy and wit comes through the performances of Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum, and not John Huston’s weirdly sleepy direction. Normally a dark wit with a peppy sense of pacing and tone, Huston seems” read more
“I cannot muster up much in the way of poisoned-pen enthusiasm for this one, in fact, I cannot muster up much of anything for it. Cheaper by the Dozen sticks its three major stars in thankless roles, has them acting out less than amusing vignettes, and feels much longer than its meager 85 minutes. ” read more
“24-karat cynicism at its most entertaining. Chicago is a solid racehorse of a movie musical, and it feels more classic in its presentation than many of its contemporaries. It loads the cast up with movie stars (a mixed bag, but mostly successful), glittery costumes, and grandiose production numbers.” read more
“Heavily indebted to Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ in its combination of reality and fantasy in exploring the artistic mind and temperament, All That Jazz is a reflective, energetic movie about a genius director/choreographer grappling with impending death. For such weighty material, All That Jazz feels ” read more
“Inexplicably the highest grossing movie musical ever, Grease is a soulless, synthetic experience. There's no real personality here to speak of, just an indifference to style and substance. This is normally not a huge problem with musicals, as they make up for a lack of heavy substance with an abunda” read more
“I came across Cabaret the first time at a highly formative time in my life. I was around 11 or 12, and I found it on cable. Clearly, I didn’t understand every single nuance, yet the content spoke to me on a very deep level. As time has gone on, Cabaret has only solidified in my mind as the obvious” read more
“As a star vehicle, Funny Girl is top of the class, as an actual movie, Funny Girl is a great star vehicle. It’s a towering monument to Barbra Streisand’s reading of Fanny Brice, and there’s more than a hint of Barbra in Fanny and Fanny in Barbra. Not enough good things can be written about Str” read more
“The dirty little secret of theater nerds is that the stage show version of The Sound of Music is not very good. The movie isn’t just an improvement, the movie is practically an entirely different beast. It doesn’t just restructure the narrative, it completely rethinks some musical numbers, modif” read more
“Some stories are surprisingly sturdy, they’re bulletproof entertainments built upon solid foundations and strong characters. George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion transmutes across genres into this Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady, one of the titans of musical theater. This 1964 fi” read more
“Am I going to be that asshole that dissents on Mary Poppins being a canonized great? Well, yes and no. I think Mary Poppins is a great movie – in parts. The pacing is all over the place, and nearly a third of the film is occupied by the boring story involving Mr. Banks and the bank. Yet there’s ” read more
“Robert Wise was already a major industry veteran by the time West Side Story came around. Beginning his career as Orson Welles’ editor, getting Oscar nominated for Citizen Kane and working closely to create some of those great special effects shots, before transitioning to a director under Val Lew” read more