‘Movie Corner’ Archives
Top 10 movies of 2009*
by Howard McQuitter, II Hurt Locker War/drama Rated: R Director: Kathryn Bigelow Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) has the most dangerous job in the world, disconnecting road bombs in Baghdad. There”'s not enough money to compensate him for his task. Sometimes Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), James”' superior, thinks James is a little crazy. Baader Meinhof Komplex Drama/History/Thriller/Adventure/Mystery Rated: R Director: Uli Edel German with English subtitles The meanest leftist groups in the west, the Red Army Faction, aka Baader Meinhof Gang, emerges in the late 1960s and into the 1970s in reaction to too much ultraconservatism in the West German government. They seek to take extreme measures, bombing banks, government buildings, etc., against the status quo. (more…)
Casablanca: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
by Howard McQuitter ***** 1942 Warner Brothers Parkway Theater Drama/Romance/Mystery Running time: 102 minutes B/W, English, French, German Director: Michael Curtiz “Casablanca” is one of those special films I have seen many times over the last 50 years, but every time I see it, the feeling is like the first time. The first time over many times, the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman duo, the cynical Claude Rains as Captain Renault, the Czech freedom fighter and escapee from a Nazi concentration camp, the memorable piano player “playing” “As Time Goes By” in Bogart”'s character Rick Blaines”' Rick”'s Café American, and so forth. However, as many times as I have seen “Casablanca”, there were things I didn”'t know until now. At a showing of “Casablanca” at the Parkway Theater in South Minneapolis last month, poet par excellence John Flynn explained that there were 35 nationalities [...]
The Fantastic Mr. Fox & Sherlock Holmes
Fantastic Mr. Fox ***** Twentieth Century Fox Animation Lagoon Running Time: 81 minutes Rated: PG Director: Wes Anderson The adaptation of Roald Dahl”'s book to a movie by the same title, “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, directed by Wes Anderson and written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, is an ambitious and delightful project. The old saying “sly like a fox” is more than apt for extroverted Mr. Fox (George Clooney). Barely escaping from a few chickens napping and a newly pregnant wife, Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), he promises to stop stealing chickens. After a hiatus, Mr. Fox returns to the scenes of the crimes by raiding coops of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, three farmers who ban together to destroy Mr. Fox and all his cohorts. Bean owns a cider factory which was broken into by Mr. Fox and his friends Badger (Mr. Murray) and Kylie (Wally Wolodarksy), to steal the bottles of cider. Will they get caught or will they outfox (pardon the pun) the farmers? Ash [...]
