Yes, Jonah Hill did a great job as DiCaprio's best friend. It seems like Hill gets a lot of "best friend" roles (I had to think of "Moneyball" when he showed up in "Wolf of Wall Street") but Hill does new and interesting things with the role here. One of my favorite sce...

Chio, there were only three people when I was in the theater for "Wolf of Wall Street" yesterday. Which is better than when I was the only person seeing "American Hustle" the week before. I loved the use of "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" too. And the reference to "Fr...

Saw "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013) directed by Martin Scorsese yesterday. Wow. It is terrific. The movie is one of Scorsese's best. It uses voice-over, flashbacks, all the tools a filmmaker can use to tell a story that makes us take a look at the basic American assumption that it's all a...

Today I watched "Hannah Arendt" (2012) directed by Margarethe von Trotta. I was impressed by this film. It looks at the controversy touched off by Hannah Arendt's book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" and its impact on her life. In some ways, making a movie about an intellectual who write...

Today I watched "Incident at Blood Pass" (1970) directed by Hiroshi Inagaki. This was a very enjoyable samurai film about a group of travelers at a remote mountain in who are taken captive by bandits. Toshiro Mifune is a ronin who gets caught up in the situation. (And yes, I did think of &...

Yesterday I saw "American Hustle" (2013) directed by David O. Russell. It left me with mixed emotions. I liked most of the parts of the movie, but they didn't add up to a satisfying whole. I could be a smart alec and say I liked the movie better when it was called "Absence of Malice&q...

Yesterday I watched "Hilary and Jackie" (1998). It is a British film, based on real events, about two sisters who were both musicians. The elder, Hilary, played the flute, while the younger, Jackie, became a world-famous cellist. I found it a gripping, fascinating film. (It wobbled toward ...

Yesterday, my son and I watched "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (1926) the first animated feature film, made in Germany. Actually, my son liked this Arabian Nights-style adventure more than I did. The animation in the movie is of silhouettes, not drawings. Consequently, I guess, there ar...

Thanks for posting the "Suzy Snowflake" song/video. I remember that song a lot from when I was in Kindergarten, but not really much after that. It always has a kind of wistful/sad quality, I think.

Stanley Tucci is very much in evidence in "Catching Fire." He is the "Howard Cosell" of the Hunger Games, the TV announcer. I think you were thinking of the "game master" who designs the TV spectacle of the Hunger Games. As I understand it, while the "game master&q...

I love "The Marrying Kind." I think it is one of Cukor's best films. A wonderful, daring movie that is a true rollercoaster of emotions. (And I like seeing Charles Bronson in the background.) Saw "Catching Fire," the new "Hunger Games" movie today. I liked it and left a...

Today I took my daughter and son to see "Catching Fire," the new "Hunger Games" movie. We all liked it. My son felt the book was the weakest of the three, and he thought the movie did a good job improving/excising the book's weaknesses. I've never read the book, and I thought tha...

Today I watched "Genevieve" (1953) directed by Henry Cornelius. I really enjoyed this movie. It started a little slow, but the characters had a real charm so I stayed with it. Once the road rally got underway, things heated up, and by the time the race started, I was rooted to the screen. ...

Yesterday I watched "The Stranger" (1946) directed by Orson Welles. Usually, I've seen "The Stranger" dismissed as the only "ordinary" movie Welles made. I've even seen it dismissed as a rip-off of "Shadow of a Doubt." However, I have to say I was pretty impre...

A few days ago, I watched "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" (2011) co-directed by Werner Herzog. It is a documentary about fur trappers in central Siberia. I found it fascinating. I liked how we saw what was Russian (Victory Day and Christmas) as well as what was unique to Siberia. The t...