#2 — Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017) For her debut feature as the sole credited director, Greta Gerwig opted for a story so personal that it clearly approaches full-on autobiography. Lady Bird is set in the California city where Gerwig … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Two
Emma. (Autumn de Wilde, 2020). Director Autumn de Wilder and screenwriter Eleanor Catton bring a touch of the rambunctious to this adaption of Jane Austen’s novel about sprightly busybody Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy). There’s no wholesale reinvention of the story, … Continue reading Then Playing — Emma.; The Assistant; Swallow
When Ruben (Riz Ahmed) first appears in Sound of Metal, he is behind a drum kit in a dank club, pounding out a heathen beat as Lou, his bandmate and girlfriend, howls at the microphone and scratches at her guitar. … Continue reading Now Playing — Sound of Metal
#3 — The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011) Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is cinema a formed by memory. Or maybe it’s cinema in the shape or memory. Or cinema capturing the texture of memory. Or cinema turned … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Three
“There was always the feeling that you were in the presence of thwarted violence,” Orson Welles once said of the Hollywood hand he hired to help him with the screenplay of his first feature film. “It was this thrashing of … Continue reading Now Playing — Mank
#4 — Cold War (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2018) Cold War is the story of Zula (Joanna Kulig) and Wiktor (Tomasz Kot). Not long after the end of World War II, Wiktor is one of the people charged with presiding over a … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Four
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020). Aaron Sorkin finds the ideal vehicle for his talky liberal indignation in the sham legal case leveled against a group of protestors who were bullied and brutalized by Chicago police officers … Continue reading Then Playing — The Trial of the Chicago 7; Slice; Horse Girl
Nearly twenty-five years ago, The Birdcage was released to enthusiastic reviews. There were dissenters within the critical community, though, including at least one writer I remember who took great offense at the Mike Nichols–directed film mining comedy from gay men … Continue reading Now Playing — Happiest Season
Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983). Lizzie Borden’s riveting experimental film is set in a fuzzily defined near future following a revolution that presumably created a more equitable society. Instead, women are still regularly belittled, persecuted, and attacked, and different … Continue reading Then Playing — Born in Flames; Beau Travail; First Cow
#5 — The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019) At the beginning of The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the main characters are waiting. Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) and Mont (Jonathan Majors) are sitting at the side … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Five
Coffee for Two 