Author: Bob Westal

With the help of its TV-friendly vibe and the support of high profiles fans like Quentin Tarantino, Howard Hawks’ “Rio Bravo” remains possibly the most popular of all classic-era westerns. The laid back seriocomic oater starred John Wayne as a tough frontier sheriff in conflict with a powerful rancher; Dean Martin as his easygoing deputy ruined by the bottle and a bad woman; teen idol Rick Nelson as a young whippersnapper able to work miracles with a gun; Walter Brennan as a wily coot; and gorgeous newcomer Angie Dickenson as the ultra-sexy female gambler who keeps Wayne guessing throughout. Though…

Considering that it’s among the most influential of all Hollywood westerns and the last great film directed by the ultimate American classicist, John Ford, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is quirkier and darker than you might expert. It features two great stars playing characters initially decades older, and later decades younger, than their actual ages, and has a moral and political point of view that resonates with the most complex moments in American history, including the one we’re in now. Coming from a director famed for awe-inspiring vistas, it is so small in visual scope that it is often…

I have to admit up-front that this is something of a pet movie – the kind you love all the more because not that many people have seen it. Why? Let’s start by saying it’s a superbly well-crafted, mid-‘80s blend of Brit gangster flick, suspense, heavy-duty irony, and Zen/existentialist philosophy. It’s also a remarkable agglomeration of talent on both sides of the camera, and stars three of the greatest leading men/character actors that England produced in the latter half of 20th century — two at the peak of their powers and one at the very beginning of his long film…

He was “the master of suspense,” but not all of Alfred Hitchcock’s films even tried to be particularly suspenseful. After the success of “Rear Window” in 1954, a tightly plotted, darkly comic suspenser shot entirely on a single extraordinary soundstage, Hitch seems to have wanted to take a break and make more relaxed and expansive films. And so it was that his next picture was a tale of light intrigue set against the majesty of the French Riviera, where the suspense/mystery element presented the thinnest veneer of camouflage against both commercial considerations and Hollywood censorship. The director often referred to…

Even as someone who has a soft spot for offbeat indie comedies, I would nevertheless seriously consider instituting a perpetual moratorium on the use of the word “quirky” to describe that kind of movie. The only problem is then we’d have no other word to use in reference to something like “Gigantic.” This is the story of the emotional life of Brian (Paul Dano of “There Will Be Blood” and “Little Miss Sunshine”), a low-key salesman of very expensive beds whose only real ambition is to adopt a Chinese baby. It’s a laudable but unusual goal for a young man,…

The romance of Ray Koval (Clive Owen) and Claire Stenwick (Julia Roberts) is simple enough. Boy meets girl, boy and girl have sex, girl drugs boy and steals incriminating documents. Just another day in the internecine jockeying between the CIA and MI6, but there’s a spark between these two crazy, mendacious kids. It’s only a matter of a few years before they go into corporate espionage, where the real spy money is, and become involved in a battle over a super-secret new product being fought over by CEO Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and his nemesis, overbearing corporate whiz-kid Dick Garsil…

If you hear the words “hockey puck” and think of ice hockey — then you’re a hockey fan. If you’re a comedy fan, however, the visage of “Mr. Warmth” himself, Don Rickles, the world’s most beloved insult comic, will pop into your head, even if no one’s quite sure how or why “hockey puck” came to be a put-down. What we do know is that Rickles has a unique gift for generating riotous laughs by making fun of his audience’s weight, height, gender/sexuality, economic status, looks and ethnicity without actually hurting any feelings – or suffering any broken bones. The…

Nearly 55 years after Audrey Hepburn’s film debut, her popularity rivals that of many actresses who are (among other advantages) still living. “Funny Face” — a simultaneous spoof of cold war-era high fashion and beat-era high thought — also feels a lot more contemporary than your typical 52-year-old star vehicle. And that’s really saying something, because this pairing of the gently luminous Hepburn with the greatest of screen dancers, Fred Astaire, also represents about the last gasp of the traditional studio-era screen musical comedy. It still works because director Stanley Donen (“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” “Charade”), two great leads,…

Classroom dramas are a venerable subgenre, populated by troubled students, charismatic and dedicated teachers, lots of entertaining dramatic contrivance, comic relief and heavy-duty sentiment. Often, there is a pop music soundtrack and we are usually treated to a big finish of some sort. “The Class,” which won the Palm D’or at Cannes in 2008 and was France’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar last year, has the troubled students and the hardworking teacher, but its approach is a million miles from any tale of educational triumph and tragedy you’ve ever seen. Drawn from an autobiographical novel by punk rock…

It’s the very early 50s, the Cold War is less than half a decade old, and it’s already gone to the hot place in Korea. Even more frightening, the burgeoning U.S./Soviet nuclear arms race is threatening to take the entire world to a permanent hot place. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of Americans are convinced of a major threat from within the nation, and a popular young senator has recently charged that the U.S. State Department is riddled with Bolshevik infiltrators. In Hollywood, noted entertainers, writers, and craftspeople are losing their careers because of their political beliefs, past and present, real or…