Wicked: For Good

It’s a wonder that Baum stopped with the money supply. The impression from watching this continuation of the story is that the cultural relevancy of the foundational work is even more profound than a first glance tells. It’s all in here, and explicitly so: the social, political and personal themes that populate this split movie’s first half stand out even more in this denouement. Indeed, it’s rather astonishing how much the writers of the script could pen lines of dialogue that evoke (before the fact) specific parallels to current events and consternations. Again, it really says something that this story and its elements could be reborn and repurposed—from original incarnation (book series, then a classic movie), to another book, to the stage, and then to screen again—to say something old yet new. That whole process was helped immensely by wonderful casting, particularly in the leads (though Ariana Grande is distractingly skinny, to the point where you want to shove a donut or two into her mouth). As before, the visual design is comprehensively delightful, while most of the songs are superb. This is the whole package, a truly impressive accomplishment. Wizardry without humbug, for sure. 

Paths of Glory

A gut wrenching experience. This scathing indictment of military culture remains sadly relevant in a world where too many are willing to feed the machinery of war in all of its bestiality for the sake of slogans, hatred and personal gain. Kirk Douglas gives a terrific performance as the one man in a position of responsibility in the whole French army who actually acts like he has a soul, while Adolphe Menjou and George Macready embody the corruption of generals safe behind lines. Director Stanley Kubrick presents a film full of gripping scenes, including intense battle sequences that prefigure Saving Private Ryan by 40 years, courtroom drama as sharp as A Few Good Men, and a harrowing sequence in which a firing squad serves as a form of passion play, one that cannot help but inspire pity and disgust in equal measures. War may be, as one writer put it, a force that gives us meaning, but its secondary effects simply drip with meaninglessness and villainy. Glory’s got nothing to do with it. 

To Catch a Thief

This movie is what they used to call "a real hoot." For one thing, it’s a visual feast—and I don’t just mean the exquisite Grace Kelly. The French Riviera scenery is spectacular. Meanwhile, Cary Grant is Cary Grant, with all that entails; all the performances—from stars and supporting cast—are spot on; Hitchcock’s direction is as good and exciting and clever as ever; and the script delivers both clever turns of phrase and exciting action in equal doses. The only rub is that there’s a lot of French spoken in the film, without subtitles, because in 1955 it was assumed that any educated person would know a certain amount of the language. That’s hardly a deal breaker—you know what’s being said from context—but it can take the viewer out of the moment to an extent. Otherwise this is classic cinematic entertainment at its finest. If it tries to steal your admiration, let it. 

Angel and the Badman

What often sets a John Wayne movie apart from your average oater is that there’s often a twist to the tale that you don’t find in the usual western flick. Here, it’s about Wayne’s morally ambiguous cowpoke falling in with a family of Quakers. The setup gives the story a base layer of philosophizing in its narrative, which provides a sense of something different and intriguing to what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill story. Wayne provides his standard self as the reluctant good guy, while costar Gail Russell is charming throughout as his mildly naïve but otherwise patient and wise would be love interest. Don’t worry—the romance only partly gets in the way of familiar horse opera tropes, such as galloping mounts, guns, grand vistas, cattle rustling, outbursts of violence, etc. Mostly, this work is about a mood, a friendly (pun intended) charm that wins you over and leaves you grinning through much of the running time. It’s a film worth watching, I tell thee true. 

Jeremiah Johnson

They don’t make them like this anymore. Really, they didn’t make them like this back then, either. Or anytime. I suspect this flick is an example of the impact of star power. Take an actor with megawatt power—like, say, Robert Redford in the early 1970s—and he can pretty much make whatever movie he wants, even if it has a razor thin storyline, pretentious script structure (complete with overture, unnecessary intermission, and a goofy, balladeering countrified chorus), and virtually no other recognizable beings in it. Beyond Redford’s desire to make a movie about a mountain man, there seems to be little point to this exercise in western mythmaking, though one must appreciate the splendor of the scenery that serves as the backdrop for the action. Also, kudos go to said action, which provides doses of satisfying violence to punctuate the long ruminations in the narrative (if you generously call it that). This one certainly works better if you’re in a mood for contemplating life back in the day and above a certain elevation, but if you prefer something a bit more standard in your night of cinematic entertainment, you might want to consider just staying down in your valley. 

The Time Machine (2002)

This movie starts off highly unpromising. The immediate impression is one of TV movie production value, if not even lower depths of cheesiness. And the initial setup scenes—including a hastily arranged romantic subplot that ends with an inciting incident—have little in the way of entertainment value. But then, once the plot really kicks into gear, with Guy Pearce making ever further forays along the timeline, the whole story really starts to hum and grows quite engaging, if perhaps not truly engrossing. The future world is actually well conceived, with appropriately stepped up production values and effects to go with. I can’t speak to the physics of the thing—the story’s justifications may ultimately be full of holes—and there’s at least one piece of the future puzzle that comes across as unaddressed, at the very least, if not actually impossible, but as a light work of movie making, this one does its job to an adequate degree. And it clocks in at under two hours, so you won’t feel oppressed by the passage of time as you view. That makes it time mostly well spent. 

Goon

Sports movies are always something of a crapshoot. Sometimes it’s all hackneyed and cliched and not especially compelling; other times the effort captures the inherent drama of the game perfectly; and the rest of the efforts fall somewhere in between. This film sits closer to the good end of the spectrum than most such movies. The two great strengths here are Seann William Scott’s low-key, almost childlike performance as the titular brawler, and a script—written by Canadians Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg—that nails it in terms of hockey culture both on the ice and among the game’s devotees. There’s a lot of fun throughout, including big (if rather profane) laughs, excellent hockey action, and even a touch of cute and sweet in the relationship between Scott’s unlikely hero and Alison Pill as a reluctant and less-than-ideal love interest. Yes, this film does include that most prevalent of sports flick clichés, exposition through broadcaster narration, but that’s a minor sin in relation to a whole lot of good deeds. To mix appropriate metaphors, he shoots and lands his punches. Light the lamp.