30 March 2015

It Sure Does


A Review by Kevin Powers

★★

Let us get one thing out there right off the bat:  I almost never seek out horror movies, especially the dime-a-dozen, PG-13 jump scare, found footage, demon possession, etc., crap that's out there these days. But there's a part of me that regrets not seeing more, though, even of those. I certainly regret not seeing more of the classic horror movies pre-"Halloween."

Even for a non-horror kind of guy, when horror movies work for me, they really work. The best horror movies, to me, are the ones that don't offer solutions but simply play on basic fears. The ones that won't let go long after you see them. Only a few "scary movies" really get down to what's really scary to human beings. That being a ghost, or person, or some other entity, or even just a fear inside our own psyches that stalks us.

29 March 2015

Blind Spot 2015: Bonnie and Clyde

Created and Hosted by Ryan McNeil at The Matinee. 

There's a three word sentence in this film that seems to get all the credit:  "We rob banks." By the time Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) repeats this line upon meeting gas station attendant C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), I was already enraptured in another three word sentence uttered early on by the second of the titular characters, Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty):  "You're a knockout."

And it is. And she is. And he is. And everything about this movie is a knockout. From the French New Wave inspired cinematography and editing to the classically Americana repetition of Flatt and Scruggs' "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" to the sheer "babe" (as a friend of mine put it in an Instagram conversation yesterday) quality of Dunaway and Beatty, this movie is visually unforgettable. A knockout.

26 March 2015

Thursday Movie Picks: Mother-Daugher Relationships


Mid-week has come and gone, and it's time for another entry in Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. This week we're talking Mother-Daughter Relationships.

Man, did I get to know that relationship growing up!

I never got to meet my mother's mother. She died about four years before I was born. But the sweet and bitter of her relationship to my mother and all my mother's five sisters is ingrained in me. I know the mother-daughter relationship from a past perspective just as I know it through movies. To know my own mother is to know mothers and daughters. To have a younger sister and to see her relationship with our mother is to know mothers and daughters on yet another level.

Many movies portray the mother-daughter relationship. I have focused on the first three that came to me. These are movies driven pretty much entirely by the mother-daughter relationship.

21 March 2015

Saturday Speaks (and Links): Spring Break Edition


Part of the idea behind this Saturday Speaks thing is that I actually have to put it together on Saturday morning. Alas, if I don't have time on a Saturday morning, I will not post. These have to happen on Saturday mornings when I am up early and/or don't have company (like last week). Having said that, it has been three weeks since I've done one of my weekly recap posts. Did you miss me? 

19 March 2015

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies Adapted from a Young Adult Novel


Now, this week's category in Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks Meme is right in my wheelhouse.

I teach this stuff. Well, that it to say that I teach kids who read this stuff. So, in turn, I read it as well. I have to. I have to stay connected with the YA goods.

There are so many good movies to pick from here. Some I've used before (I'm trying not to repeat any picks). I focused on screen adaptations of works I've actually read. I came up with, in the end, three movies that I will love forever, no matter how many times I've seen them.

18 March 2015

Cinderella, courageous and kind

"Cinderella"     ★★★ 1/2




A Review by Kevin Powers

Every week for the past few months, I have participated in a weekly blog series called Thursday Movie Picks. A certain theme, or category, is thrown down, and movie bloggers around the world make a list of three picks that fit that theme. Last week's theme was Live-Action Fairy Tale Adaptations. I struggled. I honestly can't remember seeing one, especially one of the traditional ones, like say, "Cinderella."

I haven't seen the 1950 Disney Animated “Cinderella” in years, but I do know that screenwriter Chris Weitz ("About a Boy", "The Golden Compass") has done an incredible job of updating and fully enriching this already well-known fairy tale.

12 March 2015

Thursday Movie Picks: Live Action Fairy Tale Adaptations


This week on Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks Meme, I'm at a bit of a loss.

Here's the thing: I've never seen a live action fairy tale adaptation. By that I mean, I have never seen a live action adaptation of a traditional fairy tale in the Grimm sense of the genre. It's just not my bag. I have seen quite a few great ones in the realm of fantasy that I think could work here, including Rob Reiner's "The Princess Bride" (1987) and Ron Howard's "Willow" (1988). And I'm sure I saw several "fairy tale"-type movies growing up that I just don't have enough memory of, or love for, to offer as recommendations.

10 March 2015

A 'Netflix Original' Comedy Series: Past, Present, and Future


Listen: Get a Netflix subscription now!

The Netflix community was taken by storm recently, and I'm not talking about the brilliant third season of its beloved political drama series "House of Cards," starring the unstoppable Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.

No. I'm talking comedy here.

Last Thursday night, I caught wind of a new comedy series to be released the following day, this past Friday. Its name is "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." Its star is Ellie Kemper (NBC's "The Office"). Its creator is Tina Fey (NBC's "SNL" and "30 Rock").

I just had to try it. And, like everything Tina Fey gets her hands on, it's genius.

05 March 2015

Thursday Movie Picks: Black-and-White Movies made since 1970


There are just so many to choose from...

That said, I've decided to break the rule of three for this edition of Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks Meme. That's right, since we have five decades to choose from, I'm choosing my favorite from each decade.

I love black-and-white cinematography, and, with these picks, I'm going full-on black-and-white. Many movies since 1970 have integrated bits of black-and-white into a color movie or vice versa. One of my favorites of all-time, Gary Ross' "Pleasantville" (1998), even beautifully splashes color into its black-and-white frames. But, no, I'm going black-and-white with a full on purpose with these picks. Movies in which their makers chose to depict worlds bereft of color.

Black-and-white cinematography gets down to the essence of what makes movies movies. It even reminds us that we're watching a movie, as if we need to be reminded. What I mean by that is that it triggers the escape effect we movie lovers crave.

01 March 2015

I'm Somebody's DUFF

"The DUFF"     ★★★

A Review by Kevin Powers


"When I was in high school in the 90s, we didn't have emojis. We had to use actual facial expressions." - Mr. Filmore (Chris Wylde) in "The DUFF"

I'm a sucker for teen movies, even though I'm at a point now, where, when I see teen comedies, I relate to the teachers more than the students. I feel old, yet I'm only four years older than the star of the new teen comedy, "The DUFF." Our heroine, Bianca Piper (Mae Whitman), is a senior in high school. At 26, Whitman totally works as an 18-year-old, and she, along with the great Allison Janney, who plays her mother, Dottie, is what keeps this movie afloat.

A veteran supporting actress on TV, most notably as "Bland" Ann Veal, or Michael Cera's girlfriend, in "Arrested Development" and as Lauren Graham's daughter in NBC's "Parenthood," and even GREAT teen movies like "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012), Whitman gets the opportunity to carry a movie here. She succeeds. It's not as game-changingly good as Emma Stone's work in the somewhat similar teen comedy, "Easy A" (2010), but Whitman has an endearing presence that works for me.