Reviews

The suckage of this movie is truly astounding. It has rickety plot that serves no purpose beyond setting up repeated blood-drenched spraying of bullets. They're not gun "fights" because despite all the bullets fired by others, only bullets fired by John Wick seem to do any damage.

And, somehow, they've found a way to craft an action series around a performer who's best described as balsa wood: lightweight and wooden.

I went into this with high hopes, since I enjoyed the original Harry Potter novels and the resultant movies a great deal.

But about 30 minutes into "Fantastic Beasts," I realized I was being bludgeoned by a movie that is ridiculously long on special effects and visuals, and woefully short on story and genuine character development, unlike the original books and movies.

Alas, the Potter wizarding world was been infected with the same greed and hubris that overran Middle Earth in the wake of the Lord of the Rings juggernaut. The Hobbit, a simple, lovely, one-volume children's story was over-inflated into a bloated three-movie monstrosity.

And now, the Potter universe is being stomped and punched and bled to death in the same manner.

I morn.

The lead review expresses some distaste for how the parents are portrayed, a view with which I must take issue.

The basic story (teenage boy has misadventures while his parents are away) resonated very strongly with me because during the '70s, on several separate occasions when our parents were away, my brother and I hosted week-long, sustained parties that were only a little smaller and more restrained - and with only the hookers missing. We grew up in the Chicago suburbs where Risky Business was filmed, where such parties, while by no means common, most definitely occurred.

My mother, bless her, could have supplied the line uttered by Joel's mother, because each time, as she and my father departed, Mom would say, in the same tone as Joel's mom, "We trust you, dear."

Joel Goodson's parents weren't portrayed as stupid or naive, simply trusting. They trusted their son - with good reason - and there was only the smallest evidence that anything untoward had happened in their absence. The same was true in the case of my brother and me.

My only regret about Risky Business is that it was not released with the original, darker ending, which would have added considerable resonance to the story which, in the end, was about the loss of innocence.

Local Hero is a charming, low-key movie with a wry and sly sense of humor typical of director Bill Forsyth's work. The humor sneaks up on viewers through the first half hour or so, then stays at a satisfying simmer. Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster are great, and are supported by a perfect ensemble of lesser-knowns. The soundtrack by Mark Knopfler is very evocative and quite outstanding. I cannot possibly recommend this movie more highly. It has a permanent place in my personal Top Ten.

Fluffy, almost weightless, "Legally Blonde" nonetheless makes a few gentle points about self-esteem and how people perceive each other.

And Reese Witherspoon carries the movie, no question about it.

This eight-hour documentary is NOT what you might think. It contains not one frame of archival footage of Nazi atrocities. Instead, it is dozens of modern (early '80s) interviews with surviving death camp inmates, guards, a commandant and people living near the camps. In several cases, Lanzman takes surviving inmates back to the razed sites of the camps, where they recount the horrific indignities visited upon them. The most hair-raising interview is about six hours in, with a Jewish barber who, in the space of 5 minutes, shaved the heads of his wife, his best friend and his best friend's wife just prior to their being gassed. With tears welling up, he describes shaving their heads in silence and without acknowledgement, so he might continue living and offer testimony to their hellish demise.