Movie Review: “A Room with a View”

 

Enchanting from beginning to end. –Rogert Ebert

Overview
Merchant Ivory productions, one of the oldest indie film companies, has produced many smart, beautiful pictures on a small budget: Maurice, Howard’s End, The Mystic Masseur, The White Countess, etc.  My personal favorite is A Room with a View from 1985; it was shot in Florence, Italy and county [...]

Movie Review: “Truly Madly Deeply”

Overview
This imaginative romantic comedy (released in 1991) was recently deceased director Anthony Minghella’s first film.  It is a terrific film, starring theatrically-trained actors: Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, and Michael Maloney.  Minghella also did commentary for this film; he admits that he was a technical novice, but relied on a team of experts.  Most of this team [...]

Movie Review: “The Apartment”

 
Before last week, I never knew about this terrific comedy film by famed director Billy Wilder.  I picked it up from The Strand bookstore in Union Square because I absolutely loved Jack Lemmon (and co-star Tony Curtis) in Some Like It Hot.  The Apartment won 5 Oscars in 1960, including the most-coveted one, Best Picture!  [...]