My intention was to have a fresh Bad Movie Night post to share this week. To commemorate the end of the semester at my workplace–or, more significantly, the beginning of a summer stretch that is far less stressful–we decided to … Continue reading The Unwatchables: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
#35 — Husbands and Wives (Woody Allen, 1992) Woody Allen insists that his films aren’t autobiographical. Even though he’s arguably he has clearer sole authorship of his films than any other American director of the past thirty years, and those … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Thirty-Five
#36 — Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999) The trailer for Magnolia billed it as “A P.T. Anderson Picture.” It was the writer-director’s third feature, and the follow-up to 1997’s Boogie Nights, the film that first garnered him significant attention and … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Thirty-Six
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949). The film is the second of Ford’s loose “Cavalry Trilogy.” It’s well-regarded, as are most of Ford’s collaborations with John Wayne, but, while it may be a sort of cinematic sacrilege to say so, the film is little more than a plain-footed entertainment. That assessment seems more damning than it is. The film is expert and buoyant and infused with a nice mix of wit and charm, all qualities that seemingly came naturally to John Ford when he was more concerned with making something simply satisfying than a work of grave importance. … Continue reading Beresford, Fletcher, Ford, Hawks, Twohy
Sequels invariably inspire comparisons, weighing the merits of what’s flickering on the screen against the adventures that came before. This seems to be especially true for superhero sequels, maybe because there’s an echo of the comic reading experience, where every … Continue reading Everything you say is like iron; it smashes me up but it’s brittle inside
#37 — Shall We Dance? (Masayuki Suo, 1996) Part of the appeal of foreign films is the glimpse they can provide of a different culture. There’s a distancing angle to this as a film-goer, a sense that perhaps having a … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Thirty-Seven
#2 — Judy Davis as Caroline Chasseur in The Ref (Ted Demme, 1994) Judy Davis radiates strength. There’s an edgy intelligence in her eyes and forthright authority in her manner. She comes across as someone who will never quite get backed into a corner, but could manage to shove someone else into that position with a little more than a few withering glances. She’s imposing in the brittle exactitude of her domination of a scene. That is not, however, the entirety of who she is onscreen. She’s just as lucky to use that personal potency to heighten the vividness of … Continue reading Greatish Performances #2
#38 — Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater, 1995) Richard Linklater’s earliest films are all very verbal. The people onscreen unleash their varied opinions and theories with a barrage of words. The writer-director had so much to say that he concocted small … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Thirty-Eight
Writer-director Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up to the splendid creature feature The Host finds him moving from the realm of Ishiro Honda to that of Alfred Hitchcock. It could be argued that he’s still tracking monsters and assessing the damage that they … Continue reading You can stand up or you can run, you and I both know what you’ve done
Noah Baumbach has certainly been going to some dark places with his most recent efforts, at least his most recent directorial efforts. He’s also been collaborating with Wes Anderson, co-writing the screenplays on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and … Continue reading Let’s get together and talk about the modern age
