Eric Watches Movies

Eric Gmeinder's guide to the wonderful world of film

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

★★★★

Directed by: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley
Music by: Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains

There is little to dislike about the greatest screen Hood.  It drips with the kind of swashbuckling fun that would later grace the Indiana Jones films.  Korngold's score and the glorious Technicolor photography accentuate the feel.

The Addams Family (1991)

★★½

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Starring: Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Anjelica Huston

An impostor claiming to be Gomez's long-lost brother sets out to inherit a fortune through a swindle.


This Addams is not half bad.  All cast members are in fine form, and the production design is quite adequate.  The plot, however, falls quite flat and the feel is closer to Charles Addams's comics than the '60s TV show.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

★★

Director: Tom Shadyac
Starring: Jim Carrey

Clueless pet detective Ace Ventura is hired to find the missing dolphin mascot of Miami's football team.


I am at a loss to describe this movie.  Not that it's especially good or bad, but it finds an excellent balance.  Not much of what Carrey does is especially funny here.  Still, it was very popular back in '94.

Ace in the Hole (1951)

★★★★

Directed by: Billy Wilder
Starring: Kirk Douglas

A suspicious reporter gets his break when miners are trapped.


Billy Wilder's biting satire of how the media play stories up or down is little short of a masterpiece. (It was also quite prophetic.) The dialogue is exceptionally witty, and the cinematography and soundtrack add their share.

Abraham Lincoln (1930)

★★½

Directed by: D. W. Griffith
Written by: Stephen Vincent Benet
Starring: Walter Huston, Una Murkel


The life and times of Lincoln, the savior of a nation.


Griffith's take on the life of the Great Emancipator is well-meaning, but somewhere along the way it falls a bit flat.  The acting is a bit overripe, and things aren't helped by miscasting (such as Murkel as Lincoln's first lover, Ann Rutledge) and historical inaccuracies.  The spectacle is imposing but cannot quite compensate.