Hotel (1967) Review
Rod Taylor runs a grand old New Orleans hotel through one week of takeover threats, a jewel thief and a hidden hit-and-run in this glossy adaptation of Arthur Hailey's novel. It's an 8.5.
Tag: Ensemble
An ensemble is several protagonists sharing one runtime, and the structure is harder than it looks. This tag collects reviews of ensemble films and the craft of giving every character something to want.
2000sStar Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) Review
Star Trek: Enterprise rates 4 for its first two seasons and 8 for its last two. A completely mixed bag that spent two years not knowing what it was, committed to a serialized arc in season three, became the show…
2020sStar Trek: Starfleet Academy (2026) Review
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy rates minus ten thousand on the rewatch scale. It is the worst thing I have ever watched, film or television, and that includes Battlefield Earth. Pure garbage. Horseshit. Something written by small children with crayons on…
1950sThe Greatest Show on Earth (1952) Review
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. DeMille filmed the Ringling Brothers circus for two and a half hours, wrapped it in a love triangle nobody remembers, and it beat High Noon.…
2000sCrash (2005) Review
Crash (2005) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Paul Haggis assembled a multi-strand Los Angeles film in which every character holds one racial attitude the plot then corrects, won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, and has spent…
1950sAround the World in 80 Days (1956) Review
Around the World in 80 Days (1956) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Mike Todd shot the Verne novel in thirteen countries with about forty recognizable faces in one-scene appearances, invented the modern cameo, and beat Giant…
2020sFast X (2023) Review
Fast X (2023) rates 2 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The tenth entry in a series that began with a film about stealing DVD players, costing around three hundred and forty million dollars, ending on a cliffhanger, and…
2020sAmsterdam (2022) Review
Amsterdam (2022) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. David O. Russell assembled one of the largest casts of the decade to tell a true story about a 1933 plot against the American government, and buried it under…
2020sRebel Moon (2023) Review
Rebel Moon (2023) rates 1 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Zack Snyder pitched this to Lucasfilm as a Star Wars film, was refused, and made it anyway with the names changed. It is Seven Samurai with the recruitment…
2010sThe Magnificent Seven (2016) Review
The Magnificent Seven (2016) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Antoine Fuqua takes the same structure, casts it the way the American West really looked, and gives the villain a coherent economic argument. The last forty minutes…
1960sThe Magnificent Seven (1960) Review
The Magnificent Seven (1960) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai relocated to the Mexican border, shortened by an hour, and improved in one specific way. Every gunman gets an introduction that is also an…
1980sSilverado (1985) Review
Silverado (1985) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Lawrence Kasdan made a Western in a decade that had stopped making them, assembled four leads before any of them were famous, and built it out of every convention…