It’s hard to see Nine as anything other than a retreat of sorts for director Rob Marshall. He followed up his Oscar-feted Chicago–a film you may recall that I quite like–with an attempt to branch out into prestige fare that … Continue reading On the black Fellini sails, tattered rags that hangs on nails reminds me
Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993). The first film in Kieslowski’s famed Three Colors trilogy stars Juliette Binoche as a woman dealing with the recent death of her famous husband and young daughter in a car crash. She retreats from the world, getting drawn back only reluctantly, in part due to interest and controversy over her spouse’s last, incomplete work. There’s tremendous thematic heft in the work, with the specter of mortality drawn over the entire work, enhanced by the sense of all the ways in which life itself drifts away from us. Binoche is moving and insightful in her … Continue reading Ephron, Hunt, Kieslowski, Kieslowski, Tykwer
There have already been plenty of words devoted to all the ways in which Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is especially timely, so let’s instead consider the elements that make it timeless. Yes, the profession of the film’s main … Continue reading Trying to fly away might have been your first mistake
#1 — No Country For Old Men (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2007) After all the words I’ve tapped out in the name of this ongoing project, this public exercise in grappling with the films that have meant the most … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number One
#2 — Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006) “Every edit is a lie.” That assertion is famously credited to filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. I referenced that the first time I wrote about Children on Men, but I can’t resist returning to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Two
#3 — Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007) With Zodiac, David Fincher stakes out the compelling argument that if a true-life story is worth telling in the first place, it doesn’t necessarily need embellishments and alterations. Biopics and docudramas routinely hammer fact and … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Three
#4 — The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006) Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is a powerhouse, a movie that announces itself immediately as unusually kinetic and dynamic. One of the earliest sequences sets the tone as the film rushes through the development of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Four
#5 — Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, 2005) The year that Good Night, and Good Luck. was released, George Clooney used his ample personal funds to get particularly fitting and telling Christmas gifts for many of his friends. … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Five
Since at least 1989’s The Abyss, James Cameron has expanded the technical limits of cinema with each successive film. He’s gone to special effects artisans with a reasonable assessment of their capabilities and explained, probably with some degree of forcefulness, … Continue reading So break a leg now, soon all the world will be a stage
The Road seems like it should work. Cormac McCarthy’s novel is a riveting depiction of life after society has broken down completely, following a bedraggled father and son as they achingly march towards the coast and the indeterminate promise that … Continue reading This dead road leads down to that dead road and back
