#19 — Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954) Seven Samurai is an unassuming epic. It may seem a strange description for the three hour tale of a band of misfit warriors recruited by a desperate rural town to stand up … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Nineteen
Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972). This first film version of Anthony Shaffer’s play made it to screens a mere two years after the original work’s New York premiere. Given the cunning narrative duplicity at work in the story, it’s no wonder there was a rush to adapt it before the many secrets contained therein could ripple too far from the theatrical community. But deceptions that work onstage don’t necessarily bear up to the closer scrutiny of the camera, and that itself can intrude upon the necessary suspension of disbelief given the characters are able to investigate with even greater intimacy. … Continue reading Cromwell, Helgeland, LeRoy, Lupino, Mankiewicz
There was talk about a Sin City sequel after from the very moment of its release. Much as I loved the original film, I never thought returning to the stylized world was a good idea. I’m somewhat surprised anyone still maintained there was any wisdom in the idea after Frank Miller delivered a colossal bomb with the de facto sequel found in his official directing debut, the film adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit. This piece was included in my year-end countdown after I’d started writing film reviews again at my original online home. As the first sentence notes, I … Continue reading From the Archive: Sin City
#20 — The African Queen (John Huston, 1951) There are gateway films for everyone, those features that unlock something inside that inspires a previously absent appreciation for, say, foreign cinema or art house fare. I can’t actually pinpoint what opened … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty
Rest in peace, Robin. We lead off our home video segment with the release of one of last year’s most emotionally powerful films: the Penny Marshall-directed film AWAKENINGS. AWAKENINGS details the work of a doctor, played to perfection by Robin Williams, who takes on the perplexing case of several people who have been in comas for several years, but still have functioning motor skills. They’re able to catch a falling pen, or play an odd game of catch by propelling a beach ball to one another. Williams formulates a potential cure for these patients that succeeds in drawing them out … Continue reading From the Archive: Awakenings
#21 — Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959) It’s entirely possible — likely, even — that Anatomy of a Murder is far better known for the design work of Saul Bass that shapes the opening titles and the poster … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Twenty-One
Understandably, there’s been a lot of attention on filmmaker Richard Linklater and the long path to his new film, Boyhood. Stories have covered the logistics of filming a story in small bursts over the course of twelve years or focused … Continue reading Toward a wisdom beyond the shelf, toward a dream that dreams itself
Her friends, it seemed, called her Betty. I believe this to be the case because I once saw Lauren Bacall make an appearance on The Tonight Show back when Johnny Carson, the only host of that program who truly mattered, presided over it. He kept calling her “Betty,” always with a level of purely smitten appreciation that I rarely saw in the preternaturally composed entertainer. It wasn’t hard to figure out why this upstanding Midwestern gentleman might find himself a little bit swoony in the presence of her. She was decades past her debut as a willowy ingenue in the … Continue reading Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014
I remember watching Happy Days on the first night that an episode entitled “My Favorite Orkan” aired. I didn’t know that was the title of the episode. I only knew it was like nothing I’d ever seen on the nostalgia-driven sitcom. It was remarkable enough that the program focused on a space alien who visits the Cunningham home, but the actor playing that extra-terrestrial was an absolutely astounding force of nature, bending off oddball jokes at a rate that raced ahead of the speed of thought. I was seven years old, and I was prepared to tell everyone it was … Continue reading Robin Williams, 1951-2014
As can be gleaned from the introductory hook to the review, this was written for the radio show The Reel Thing. I think we traveled to Madison to screen it, which was a long way to go for such a terrible movie. (The other films included in the same episode were Rocky V and White Palace, both of which I know opened in our smaller town.) In the writing of it, I didn’t mention the most memorable moment in the film, in which Morris Day urinates on a plant in Prince’s club, then promptly sets the plant on fire, implying … Continue reading From the Archive: Graffiti Bridge
Coffee for Two 