Star Trek: Into Darkness

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013) starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Benedict Cumberbatch, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Alice Eve, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller. This latest addition to the Star Trek canon tries hard but makes the mistake of dipping into the past, bringing back Khan as a villain. It also feels compelled to get a little too busy, with all kinds of camera motion and crazy camera angles. I'm a big Star Trek fan, but this movie failed to grab my attention  in a really big way. The plot was too complicated and too poorly explained. I just didn't enjoy it. On the plus side, favorite characters all returned, and there was even a Tribble subplot. It should have been good fun. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) starring Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Green Bush, Alfred Lutter, Diane Ladd, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Burstyn won an Oscar in the role of Alice, a woman whose husband (Bush) dies and who must then decide what to do with her life (and her 12-year-old son, played by Lutter). Kristofferson plays the gentle man she meets along the way, who tries to win her heart. The movie makes lovely use of music. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+  

Alice Adams

Alice Adams (1935) starring Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray. Directed by George Stevens. Based on a Booth Tarkington novel, this movie tells the story of a lower-middle-class girl named Alice (Hepburn) and her efforts to win the affections of a rather wealthy young man named Arthur (MacMurray). Hepburn is utterly charming in the title role, and the film is very funny in its own underplayed way. There's a whole side-plot about Alice's father and his ambitions to start a glue factory, but many plot threads are lost in the main story about the romance between Alice and Arthur. For a movie this old, it was quite engaging and entertaining. (Subtitles are available in English, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B  

Eyes Without a Face

Eyes Without a Face (1960) starring Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli. After disfiguring his daughter in an automobile accident, mad surgeon (Brasseur) tries to restore her face by stealing faces from other young women. When one transplant fails, he vows to keep on trying until he succeeds. Horror film is only partly successful, as it is tripped up by flaws in logic of plot, and weak script. But certain scenes do engender horror, and the film is considered a classic in certain circles. In French, with English subtitles. The subtitles seem to be flawed. Grade: C+ 

The Haunting

The Haunting (1963) starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn. Directed by Robert Wise. Haunted-house feature has a small group of "researchers" taking up residence in a 90-year old house in remotest New England. Loud noises, disembodied laughter, etc. combine to scare the bejesus out of the researchers, who are there because their leader (Johnson) wants to prove that the supernatural exists. This movie seemed really tame to me, and not scary at all. Actual human monsters, such as serial killers or gangsters, are far more frightening to me than things that go bump in the night. The only thing that sets this film apart for me is Julie Harris's performance as a middle-aged woman who is slightly off-plumb and really wants something -- anything -- to happen to her. This is only so-so scare fare. (Subtitles in English are available on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B-  

Alfie

Alfie (1966) starring Michael Caine, Shelley Winters, Millicent Martin, Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field. Caine plays Alfie, a philandering cad, who thinks he's got it all figured out but ends up asking "What's it all about?" The young Michael Caine was certainly handsome enough to pull off the role as a serial womanizer whose credo is, Take your pleasure, but don't let anyone get too close. He never falls in love, seeing no advantage in getting all involved with a bird. And he refers to all "birds" as "it." He's a tremendously misogynistic character, and hard to like, but by the end of the movie I had developed a kind of sympathy for him. Cher sings title song, "What's it all about, Alfie?" (Subtitles in English are available, as are closed captions.) Grade: A- 

Before Midnight

Before Midnight (2013) starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy. Directed by Richard Linklater. Follow-up to 1995 and 2004 films brings the two main characters up to date, with Hawke as a father torn by the absence of his son, while Delpy is the now-middle-aged mother of his two twin daughters. The movie consists mostly of one long conversation between the two, which devolves into an argument, which gets pretty nasty before it is over. Although the movie consists almost entirely of this one dialogue, it doesn't fail to hold the viewer's interest, and gives birth to profound thoughts about relationships past and present. If you've followed these characters through the two earlier movies -- "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" -- you will want to see this installment and be brought up to date. Good, mature filmmaking. (Subtitles are available in English for the hearing-impaired, but not closed captions.) Grade: A- 

Man Hunt

Man Hunt (1941) starring Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, John Carradine. Directed by Fritz Lang. In 1939, before World War II had broken out, a British man named Thorndike (Pidgeon) carries out a "fake" assassination attempt on Hitler, only to be apprehended by the Nazis. He manages to escape and stow away on a ship bound for England, but once back home he finds himself pursued relentlessly by German agents. Although the movie strains the bounds of believability, it is still an entertaining propaganda film, made in America but set in Britain. Bennett provides a strong female love interest, playing a lower-class girl named Jerry who helps Thorndike out, then falls for him. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B  

That Hamilton Woman

That Hamilton Woman (1941) starring Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Alan Mowbry. Lady Emma Hamilton (Leigh), wife of the British ambassador to Naples (Mowbry), meets and falls in love with Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson (Olivier). Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, it's a tragic romance between two people who are married to others, and Leigh and Olivier have never been more attractive on screen. Their love affair is utterly convincing, plus, there is a grand sea battle thrown in for effect. Notice that this movie was made two years after "Gone With the Wind," so Leigh was near the height of her career. The fact that this film was shot in black and white hardly detracts from the appeal. I genuinely enjoyed it. (Subtitles in English are available, which is a good thing because closed captions are not included.) Grade: A- 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, Alan Marshal, George Zucco. Holmes' (Rathbone) arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty (Zucco), concocts a convoluted crime to distract Holmes from his real aim, to steal the crown jewels. Despite Moriarty's brilliant plan, Holmes catches on (of course). But the movie is stylishly carried off, with Watson (Bruce) being the object of fun more than once. For 1939, this is a pretty good mystery with lots of atmosphere and a dearth of red herrings. Not bad. (Subtitles in English are included, although closed captions are not.) Grade: B  

Operation Pacific

Operation Pacific (1951) starring John Wayne, Patricia Neal, Ward Bond. World War II submariner Duke Gifford (Wayne) is so dedicated to his career that he loses his wife (Neal). Four years after their divorce, they meet again on Pearl Harbor, and their "zing" is reignited. This movie contains lots of submarine action, and one of the major plot strands concerns torpedoes that hit enemy ships and don't explode. Wayne is in top form as a Navy man who is overzealous about his ship and tends to neglect his woman -- until he learns his lesson. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+ 

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great (1956) starring Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom. Over two hours long, this failed epic spends far too much time on Alexander's intrigues in Greece, doesn't have enough time left over to devote to his conquests and death. The script has many holes in it, and the acting is only so-so. Burton, who was about 30 when the film was made, is too old for the part of Alexander, who died at the age of 33. Altogether, a very disappointing film about a grand subject. (Subtitles are available in English, as well as closed captions.) Grade: C

Alexander Nevsky

Alexander Nevsky (1938) starring a cast of Russians from the 1930s. Leonard Maltin calls this movie a masterpiece, but he is way off the mark. The DVD is terrible. It is not indexed, so you can't stop the film to take a break without losing your place. It's in Russian with English subtitles, and the subtitles are illegible about half the time. The sound quality is terrible, and the black-and-white picture is not much better. The plot concerns a Russian effort in the 13th century to repel an invasion by Teutonic (German) knights, an odd parallel considering what was about to happen in Europe at the time the film was made. The movie is hyper-patriotic on behalf of Russia. The acting is so-so, and the script is quite clumsy. It was not an enjoyable viewing experience. Grade: D

The Alamo

The Alamo (2004) starring Billy Bob Thornton, Dennis Quaid, Jason Patric, Patrick Wilson, Emilio Echeverria. In 1836, a small band of Texas patriots (about 200 defenders) fights an army of thousands of Mexicans in one of the pivotal battles of the war for Texan independence. Thornton is a standout as Davy Crockett, who finds he must live up to his legend even though he is only a man. The movie is well mounted, with convincing period detail. It also follows the general Sam Houston (Quaid) after the Alamo, as he uses the Alamo as a rallying cry to his army in a decisive battle with Mexican General Santa Anna and his army. It's a pretty good action flick, although I found it lacked immediacy and I found it hard to care about this battle fought in 1836. I can hardly imagine what the audience for this film would be. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B 

Air Force One

Air Force One (1997) starring Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Wendy Crewson, Glenn Close, Dean Stockwell. Air Force One is, of course the jet that the president of the U.S. travels in. In this case, the president is played by Ford. Air Force One is taken over by a group of terrorists, led by Oldman, who has his own agenda. It's a post-Cold War thriller, with the president of Russia cooperating to help the U.S. get out of the mess they've gotten into. The movie requires a strong dose of suspension of disbelief, and even then it's a pretty standard Harrison Ford thriller. I have to admit, Oldman makes a pretty good bad guy. I found the appeal to patriotism to be moving, even as I felt myself being manipulated. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B-  

Airport

Airport (1970) starring Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy, Helen Hayes, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Van Heflin.  Somewhat soap-operaish tale of airport socked in by snow and heroic efforts of airport boss (Lancaster) and others to clear a runway blocked by a plane that turned too soon. Also features a man (Heflin) with a bomb who hopes to collect on flight insurance so that his wife will be set for life. Hayes is a delight as a little old lady who makes a habit of stowing away on flights so that she can see her daughter, who lives in a distant city. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, but not closed captions.) Grade: B

La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita (1960) starring Marcello Mostroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimee, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noel. Directed by Federico Fellini. Famous Fellini film is somewhat disappointing in the viewing, shows its age early and often. Mostroianni plays Marcello, a tabloid reporter who is disgusted by what he does for a living but can't seem to break free of it. Paparazzi are a theme throughout the movie, showing up every time someone remotely famous says or does anything. The film is highly episodic, and some of the sections are interesting, but it doesn't add up to much -- and it's a real butt-buster at two hours and 50 minutes of length. It's also in black and white, which in this case worked against the film for me. Fellini fans will no doubt love it, but it left me rather cold. (In Italian, with English subtitles -- except when the occasional character speaks in English, in which case it is not subtitled.) Grade: B-  

The Fugitive

The Fugitive (1993) starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Julianne Moore, Joe Pantoliano. Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford), falsely convicted of killing his wife (Ward), escapes and goes on the run, pursued by a dogged U.S. Marshal (Jones). The scene where Kimble escapes is spectacular, involving as it does a bus crash followed by a special-effects train crash that really blows you away on the big screen. Aside from the excellent acting (Jones won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor), this film benefits from a brilliant script and the constant tension of the chase. It's one of the best movies I've seen this year. (Subtitles in English are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: A-  

Airplane!

Airplane! (1980) starring Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Leslie Nielsen. One of the funniest comedies ever, laugh-a-minute humor coming at you for practically the entire movie. At one point it made me laugh out loud, which is really hard to do. The presence of "serious" actors Stack, Bridges, Graves and Nielsen adds to the humor as they all play it straight and in various ways make fools of themselves. This is a spoof of all the "Airport" type films that appeared in the '70s, and it hits the mark far more often than it misses. A very funny comedy. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+   

Agnes of God

Agnes of God (1985) starring Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly. A young nun (Tilly) gives birth to a baby in the convent and then, apparently, murders the baby. A court-appointed psychiatrist (Fonda) is sympathetic, but finds no easy answers. Based on a stage play, the film is only partially satisfying, leaving many questions unanswered. Still, three strong performances from the lead actresses make this a movie worth viewing. (English subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B

Aimee & Jaguar

Aimee & Jaguar (1999) starring Maria Schrader, Juliane Kohler. In 1943 in Berlin, two women fall in love with one another. One is a young German hausfrau with a husband and four children, the other turns out to be a Jew. Even though war is being waged all around them, they try to love each other through it. It might sound like an outlandish plot, but it has the virtue of being true. Unfortunately, it does not have a happy ending -- another characteristic of true stories. The movie is quite well made, and the love scenes between the two women are tastefully done. In German, with English subtitles. Grade: B+ 

Alice in Wondreland

Alice in Wonderland (1951) starring the voices of Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna. Episodic animated rendering of the Lewis Carroll classic, with memorable sequences including the Cheshire Cat, the unbirthday party, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, and the Queen of Hearts. Although truly weird, the movie does little to engage the heart, and thus fails a achieve high art. Entertaining pretty much all the way through, though. (Subtitles are available, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B