Shot in the Dark, A (1964)

Comedy Rated PG

Writer-director Blake Edwards and star Peter Sellers followed up 1963’s The Pink Panther with this much more tightly focused farce. This time Sellers’ inept Inspector Clouseau is the star – he seems to have come to the picture with a specific character in mind rather than a collection of slapstick shtick. The bumbling and fumbling

One From the Heart (1982)

Musical Rated R

One of those Hollywood disasters that you almost – and I stress almost – have to see. Francis Ford Coppola made a curious follow-up to the great Apocalypse Now with this, a musical experiment that’s at once gaudy and sterile. The movie has the flash of neon but also its deadening hiss. Neon features prominently

Silk Stockings (1957)

Musical Rated NR

Initially a Broadway musical, which composer Cole Porter adapted from the 1939 film Ninotchka, Silk Stockings takes place during the Cold War in Paris, where a famous Russian composer is caught in a tug of war between American movie producer Steve Canfield (Fred Astaire), who wants to hire him, and the Soviet agents who want

Paths of Glory (1957)

Drama Rated NR

Inspired by the Music Box’s Stanley Kubrick retrospective last week, here is a Kubrick review from the archives.

Lovely & Amazing (2001)

Drama Rated R

A “women’s picture” that features people rather than platitudes. This is a family portrait of two sisters and their mother, all of whom have lives that are functioning but fractured. Thankfully, writer-director Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking) doesn’t go for grand gestures in the manner of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. As a low-budget,

Philadelphia Story, The (1940)

Romantic Comedy Rated NR

The Philadelphia Story features one of the definitive Katharine Hepburn performances, largely because it so closely aligns with the public’s perception of her at the time. She plays smart but snooty socialite Tracy Lord, whose plan to marry an up-by-his-bootstraps businessman comes undone with the unexpected arrival of her ex-husband (Cary Grant). By 1940, Hepburn

Lady Vanishes, The (1938)

Thriller Rated NR

An early Alfred Hitchcock effort, when he was still making films in England, The Lady Vanishes begins as an ensemble farce before it settles into the familiar motions of mystery and suspense. The movie opens in a small European hotel, where a band of international travelers vie for limited rooms and meals before leaving on

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Thriller Rated NR

This lyrical import from director Peter Weir may be a thriller, but it essentially runs on anti-suspense. Set in 1900 in Weir’s native Australia, the film follows a field trip taken by boarding-school girls to the title locale, an isolated, desolate outcropping where the rock formations look like melting faces. When three of the students

Hoot (2006)

Family Rated PG

I’m glad it is easy to approve of Hoot, for disapproving of the movie would mean disapproving of a host of good-natured things, including cute owls and the cuter kids who try to save them. Adapted from the Carl Hiaasen novel, Hoot follows a budding teen (Logan Lerman) whose family has just moved from Montana

Place in the Sun, A (1951)

Drama Rated PG

One of Shelley Winters first significant roles – long before The Poseidon Adventure – was that of Alice Tripp, a factory girl who falls for Montgomery Clift’s George Eastman. George, however, has higher goals – especially when he meets a stunning socialite played by Elizabeth Taylor. It’s a love triangle that turns criminally complicated when