Movie Reviews

My Generation changed history, forever

For ninety glorious minutes one afternoon last week I was twenty years old again. I immersed myself in every delicious minute of (Sir) Michael Caine's documentary My Generation playing at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Bloor Street West near Bathurst in Toronto. The film is a macro view of life in swingin' London in the 1960s, the historical genesis and touchstone for baby boomers. The film particularly resonated with me personally because I was in London in September 1967 while traveling around Europe for five months. I had…

Continue Reading

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9 describes . . . the horror . . . the horror

As if we weren't frightened enough already by what's happening south of the border, Michael Moore just added the finishing touches with his current documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 which is now showing in movie theatres. (Coincidently, I'm also currently reading FEAR by Bob Woodward.) Call me a masochist but watching the fall of the United States of America is fascinating and tragically sad at the same time. We knew when we went to see Fahrenheit 11/9, written, produced and directed by Moore, that it would be an unsettling experience and our…

Continue Reading

Juliet, Naked does not involve nudity (sorry!), but you might want to take a peek anyway.

There's a reason I haven't posted any movie reviews lately. That's because until now there was only one movie in the entire year of 2018 that I thought was worthwhile for baby boomers to see and that was The Book Club. This is not to be confused with The Book Shop which I saw a couple of weeks ago and wasn't worth the price of admission. I went to see The Book Shop is because it starred the wonderful Bill Nighy and was obviously about books so it offered two…

Continue Reading

The Book Club is a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours

It's been eight long months since I've been to a movie theatre as there's simply nothing I've wanted to see. And boomers are traditionally big movie fans. We have so many memories of wonderful Saturday afternoon matinées as kids watching westerns, Looney Tunes and The Bowery Boys. Our movie memories probably also include steaming up the car windows at drive-ins or covertly holding hands with high school crushes in a dark theatre on Saturday evening. Sci-fi, monsters, violence and super heroes are just not my thing. So, I was delighted…

Continue Reading

All The Money In The World . . . doesn’t buy happiness

If you're a boomer like me, you probably remember the sensational newspaper coverage of a brutal kidnapping in the early seventies. Paul Getty, the sixteen-year-old grandson of the world's richest man J. Paul Getty, was snatched off the street in Rome and held for ransom of $17 million. The drama played out for several months. Getty Sr. refused to pay the ransom while the Calabrian organized crime ring who kidnapped him grew increasingly desperate. I clearly remember the universal shock and horror when we read that the kidnappers amputated Getty…

Continue Reading

DUNKIRK . . . was it good for you?

We watched Dunkirk on opening day in an IMAX theatre where the sound system vibrates your seat and unless you're sitting in the back three rows it's difficult to take in the entire panorama. The only thing missing was the sprays of water like you get in the Pirates of the Caribbean theatre in Disney World. In retrospect I wish I'd watched it in a regular movie theatre as my head kept bobbing around trying to take everything in and the volume level gave me a headache. According to the reviews…

Continue Reading
Close Menu
×