There are some film directors who have such a strong imprint on their films that regardless of the story, you know what kind of cinematic experience you’re in for when you walk in the theater. Michael Bay loves his explosions. Quentin Tarantino loves his ultra-violence (yes, with a nod to A Clockwork Orange). And Guy Ritchie? He loves his style. His oeuvre encompasses some of the coolest, most visually striking films in the last decade, including…Read More
I have fond memories of the 1960’s TV series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”, with Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) as secret agents for the United Nations Command for Law Enforcement. They were like the Impossible Mission Force, but with a Cold War twist as befit the era and global tensions that still defined much of 60’s politics and culture. Could über-hip director Guy Ritchie do the story justice? I was eager – and…Read More
While I quite enjoyed the 2009 Guy Ritchie reinvention of the fabled observant detective in Sherlock Holmes, applying the same formula in this newer film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows proved more a boring, tedious exercise in special effects and self-conscious film making and less an engaging and narratively ingenious film. In the original books by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is a fastidious, rather odd bird with extraordinary knowledge and powers of observation….Read More
If you can get over the fact that this is most assuredly not the story of Robin Hood of Nottingham Forest, eternally battling the evil Sheriff of Nottingham for Maid Marion’s hand, you might find that Robin Hood is an interesting and exciting war movie set in medieval times with Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) as the central character. Like director Ridley Scott’s last outing with Crowe, Gladiator, Robin Hood is a dirty, gritty movie with so much…Read More
I’ve been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detail-oriented detective Sherlock Holmes for as long as I can remember. As a young child I devoured the stories and as recently as last week was watching a classic 1944 Holmes movie, The Scarlet Claw, starring Basil Rathbone as the eponymous detective and Nigel Bruce as his bumbling medical sidekick John Watson. I also greatly enjoyed the BBC series of Holmes stories that starred Jeremy Brett…Read More
