Change Your Image
coventrydude-54-808326
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
St. Elsewhere: Cora and Arnie (1982)
Still holds up as maybe the best episode of a very good series.
Years later(2021), this episode stands out, still. We've lost the guest starts Doris Roberts and James Coco, but I'd like folks to remember these two fine actors. Ms Roberts will always be remembered as Ray Barone's meddling mother in Everybody Loves Raymond-in fact, recent polls found that her character in the series was the most popular one. Still, she was cast well, she acted well in the episode, and the writing was super. James Coco was the other terrific piece in this episode. Television at its height.
Summer Vacation (2012)
A complete story told in a short
It's expected that a good film maker can deliver a complete story in 90 minutes of screen time. It's an artist who can deliver that in only 22 minutes. Summer Vacation does that, pulling close your attention in the first minute and never letting go. A family with two adolescent kids take time off visiting the shore. Dad wastes no time getting in trouble, when the tide suddenly places him in peril, even while his kids are close by to try and help. A stranger to the kids rushes over to help, but this good Samaritan is no stranger to dad. The remainder of time is spent watching characters emotions fluctuate, and their assumptions change. Like the short version of the American short version of Dare(eventually made into a feature length film), part of me wanted the tale to go on, and part wanted this short to stand on its own merits. Another fine film experience from Israel, in the tradition begun by Eytan Fox.
Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Not Tarantino, not the director's best, unnecessarily violent
WARNING - major and unnecessary violence.
Major actors (Christopher Walken,Sam Rockwell,Harry Dean Stanton, Michael Pitt, Michael Stulberg, Woody Harrelson, Colin Farrell, etc) in a bloody mess of a film. A novelist (Farrell) constantly imagining through scenes starring the rest of the cast the words he's putting to paper. The film means to show humor through unnecessary violence, but unlike Quentin Tarantino, this director can't pull it off here - it's just rarely funny, but almost always bloody. It's not that the director can't write and shoot good films with violence, see his 2008 film In Bruges with Daniel Bruhl. In Seven Psychopaths, I was constantly asking (aside from the money) what were these fine actors doing in this mess of a film. At best, the only reason you'd want to watch this movie was if one of your favorite actors appears in it, and you'd like to watch everything they've done.