Full disclosure -- I tend to think less of most Hitchcock films than most people, with some rare, very notable exceptions ("Pyscho"). So, predictably, I didn't think much of this adventure-thriller, set largely in London on the cusp of World War II. At least I know why so many Hitchcock movies underwhelm me.

Clearly, he was an accomplished filmmaker, which is evident in all of his titles. The set pieces here are attention-grabbing and pretty impressive -- the assassination with…

It doesn't just seem like Charles Laughton was in every major movie of the mid-1930s. He really was. More often than not, he played the heavy, sometimes gruesomely, as in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street." So I found it quite refreshing to find him anchoring a comedy here.

This fairly standard fish-out-of-water fare about an upper-crusty British valet who is propelled into the Wild West of the U.S. was evidently a popular story in the early decades of the 20th…

I didn't drink the Kool-Aid, and that made all the difference. I was aware of the hype surrounding this film -- oners! told in real time! -- but never really paid attention to it. The worst thing about film hype is that it leaves me going too far in the other direction ("Really? That's it?"). That's probably what happened to me with fellow Best Picture nominee "Parasite," for instance. But because I watched "1917" in a relatively hype-free environment, I…

We, as a society, cannot address our problems with race by hiding our problems with race. This movie is a specific example of that problem, and it should not be canceled by our indignant, easily outraged culture. I'm not here to defend the film. I fully respect anyone's desire to criticize the picture, ignore it, write it off the face of their own personal earth. But it should not be canceled.

The problem with "GWTW," as I see it, isn't…