Currently browsing the "Shirley MacLaine" tag.

Cinema Clash podcast: Kong Skull Island; The Ottoman Lieutenant; The Last Word; Neruda; The Marseilles Trilogy

On this edition of the Cinema Clash with Charlie and Hannah: An epic monster movie that’s thin on story but big on spectacle; a love triangle wrapped in a weak war drama set in the Ottoman Empire; Shirley MacLaine gets the The Last Word in a film that Charlie detests and Hannah struggles to defend; a Chilean poet-turned-politician gets the fictionalized biopic treatment; and not one, not two, but three French films for the cinephilic Francophile (aka Charlie). Ooh-la-la! Listen now, or download for later!

Bernie

Whenever I see that a movie is “based on a true story” I wonder how little of said story actually made it onto the screen. With Richard Linklater’s Bernie, the real life material was just too good not to make it into the film. And what a hoot of a story it is! It is without a doubt, one of the funniest movies I have seen in a while, in large part because of the real townspeople of Carthage, Texas, who are interviewed throughout the film delivering a hilarious play-by-play of the unfolding events in their little town.

Valentine’s Day

Garry Marshall is brilliant. He made a mildly entertaining movie with an A-List cast and a name that virtually guarantees it a place in holiday rerun history. Valentine’s Day is like Crash-light. Really, really, really light. It follows a bunch of folks whose lives intersect in various ways as they break up, make up, find love or survive singledom on Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles.