30 Minutes or Less (2011)

30 Minutes or Less (2011)

[5] Working from a stale script that comes too late in the Tarantino wake, this dark, violent 'who's conning who' comedy is made tolerable by its flavor-of-the-week casting. If you like Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, and Aziz Ansari (like I do), you'll…
Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

Dinner for Schmucks (2010)

[5] A business man (Paul Rudd) is invited to a clandestine 'dinner with idiots' in which he's encouraged to bring the weirdest, most bizarre guest he can find for the rest of the business partners to gawk. Everyone brings a weirdo, and…
The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)

The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)

[5] I'm at a loss for this one. I saw the movie, but I'm still not sure what it's about. There's a town that sabotages drivers, all so the community can trade auto parts among themselves and hand the drivers (the ones…
Satan Met a Lady (1936)

Satan Met a Lady (1936)

[4] This second retelling of The Maltese Falcon (before John Huston proved the the third time was the charm) is a bizarre pseudo-comedy with an ingratiating performance by Warren William in the role Humphrey Bogart would later immortalize. Warren got under my…
Red-Headed Woman (1932)

Red-Headed Woman (1932)

[5] Jean Harlow plays such a nasty little character in Red-Headed Woman, sleeping her way to the top of the workforce while ending marriages left and right. She's so cold and calculating, I almost wish the movie would have been like most…
Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

[6] The Coen Brothers are at it again, this time with a wonky tale of 1950s Hollywood studio politics mixed with political scandal. Hail, Caesar! is scattershot in its narrative. Josh Brolin's character is marginally the main protagonist. Brolin plays a gruff…
Nebraska (2013)

Nebraska (2013)

[6] Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt) directs from a script by Bob Nelson this father/son road trip story about a senile old man who mistakenly thinks he's won a Publisher's Sweepstakes and insists on getting to Lincoln, Nebraska, to pick up his…
Behind the Candleabra (2013)

Behind the Candleabra (2013)

[7] Michael Douglas plays Liberace for director Steven Soderbergh in this fast-paced tragi-romantic-dark comedy about the famed pianist's five-year relationship with a man forty years his senior. Matt Damon plays young Scott Thorson, the naive pretty boy who falls under Liberace's spell.…
A Boy and His Dog (1975)

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

[7] In this adaptation of Harlan Ellison's novella, a horny teenager and his sarcastic dog communicate telepathically while wandering a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of food and women. The heart of this film is the antagonistic yet loving relationship between its title…
The Hateful Eight (2015)

The Hateful Eight (2015)

[8] Quentin Tarantino's eighth film (because he's counting) is a three-hour long claustrophobic western about eight characters holed up in a lodge during a snowstorm who all have reason to kill one another. Leading the ensemble cast are Kurt Russell as a…