The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (Stephen Roberts, 1936). No one played a well-to-do gent dapperly cavorting through a murder mystery like William Powell. In between turns as Nick Charles, he plays Dr. Lawrence Bradford in this spiked trifle, reuniting with his ex-wife … Continue reading Then Playing — The Ex-Mrs. Bradford; Death on the Nile; Moonfall
Frozen (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013). The most successful animated feature in the traditional Disney mold (fairy tale structure, a bevy of Broadway-esque songs) since the studio’s nineteen-nineties heyday, Frozen is charming enough if a little flat. Like a lot of modern Disney fables, it’s more interesting for the ways it compulsively upends the legacy tropes–the “true love” with a man, the oversimplified villainy–than for the actual merits of what winds up onscreen freed from meta examinations. The songbook provided by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez may have launched a thousand (or more) YouTube videos on the strength of … Continue reading Black, Buck and Lee, Emmerich, Frankel, Wells
My recent absence from our humble home for about a week necessitated a certain amount of ceremony in my last weekend, a weekend also notable for an uncommon lack of work. There were several enticing options, but few with as … Continue reading Bad Movie Night — 2012/Knowing
Coffee for Two 