As the Film at 11 podcast reaches its milestone fiftieth episode, I take my son Thomas on a journey up to the heavens and back down to Earth again with Alfonso Cuarón’s blockbuster smash Gravity. He liked it, but then, this is a pretty difficult movie to dislike. From its nerve-wracking suspense to its still… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 50 | Gravity (2013)
In real life, the prospect of investigating a murder is a grim business that should be conducted with the utmost seriousness and fastidious attention to detail. Yet movies and TV frequently present the job as being so much fun, the type of thing a clever person or team can do in their spare time for… Read More Wouldn’t You Like to Do a Little Detecting Once in a While, Just for Fun? | The Thin Man (1934) Blu-ray
In the latest Film at 11 podcast, I take my son on a hunt for The Fugitive, the 1993 blockbuster thriller starring Harrison Ford as a wrongly convicted man on the run from the law. Joseph tells me he liked the movie a lot, even though he obviously had some problems following the plot. More… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 49 | The Fugitive (1993)
Remembered largely as one of the better Die Hard knockoffs that proliferated in the late 1980s and most of the following decade, the 1992 action thriller Under Siege makes almost no pretense of being anything other than what it is. The movie earned the nickname “Die Hard on a battleship” immediately upon release and wears… Read More This Is Not the Work of a Cook | Under Siege (1992) 4K Ultra HD
I thought I’d give my son Thomas a break on the Film at 11 podcast this week. Rather than forcing him to watch another old movie from the 1970s or 1980s with cheesy special effects he likely wouldn’t appreciate, I picked for him the 2014 Tom Cruise sci-fi action epic Edge of Tomorrow. I knew… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 48 | Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Released to a good bit of critical acclaim but limited commercial attention almost two decades ago, and mostly forgotten on both ends in the meantime, director Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor is a movie that not just deserves but actually needs to be rediscovered today. Not to date this review too much (we’ll see how this… Read More Either You Belong or You Don’t | The Visitor (2007)
I’ve previously used the Film at 11 podcast to introduce one of my sons to the James Bond franchise, and even started him off the right way with a Sean Connery entry. That was Thomas watching Goldfinger at the time, back in episode 18. I feel I’m overdue to bring my other son, Joseph, into… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 47 | Dr. No (1962)
Love Roman Holiday though I may, Audrey Hepburn won her Oscar for the wrong movie. Arguments can be made for Breakfast and Tiffany’s or, I suppose, My Fair Lady, and I wouldn’t deny that she’s luminous in all of them. However, for my money, the actress gave her best performance in Wait Until Dark, the… Read More The World’s Champion Blind Lady | Wait Until Dark (1967) Blu-ray
Let’s talk for a moment about unexplained phenomena. In the more than three decades since The X Files premiered on television and became a cult hit that would, over time, grow into a major cultural sensation, how is it that just about everyone on the planet has taken to spelling the show’s name incorrectly? Not… Read More Might We Not Finally Turn to the Fantastic as a Plausibility? | The X Files (1993) Series Premiere
I took a calculated risk with the Film at 11 podcast this week. Even knowing my poor track record for watching fantasy and adventure movies from the late 1970s or early 1980s with my son Thomas, I pushed him into sitting through the original 1981 Clash of the Titans anyway. Thomas has been studying Greek… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 46 | Clash of the Titans (1981)
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