#37 — Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright, 2010) In adapting movies from other works, fidelity to source material can trip up even the most skilled directors. There’s a natural instinct to hew closely to whatever is being transferred … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Seven
Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016). German filmmaker Maren Ade puts pathos and comedy together in a way that’s borderline magical in Toni Erdmann. The title character, as it were, is a pseudonym commonly adopted by Winfried (Peter Simonischek) when he’s … Continue reading Then Playing — Toni Erdmann; Wildlife; The Seagull
In her recent book Ninth Street Women, Mary Gabriel briefly recounts the story of a misattributed painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A portrait of Charlotte du Val d’Ognes, the piece was originally thought to be the handiwork of … Continue reading Now Playing — Beyond the Visible – Hilma af Klint
A National Death Wish: How Science, Education, and the Future Were Sacrificed For Profit and Power by Jared Yates Sexton As Jared Yates Sexton meticulously argues in his new essay, published by The Muckrake, where we are at now is … Continue reading Outside Reading — Is Our Children Learning? edition
Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940). Alfred Hitchcock’s second Hollywood picture is basically a trial run for all slam-bang entertainments that would follow in his career. On the leading edge of World War II, a New York newspaper sends a metro … Continue reading Then Playing — Foreign Correspondent; The Rape of Recy Taylor; In Fabric
#38 — Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011) Martin Scorsese has long been a more versatile filmmaker than he is given credit for. Much as everyone reveres the tales of thugs and gangsters (and I am among the dutifully reverential), Scorsese has … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Eight
Zombieland: Double Tap (Ruben Fleischer, 2019). This sequel to Ruben Fleischer’s winning horror-comedy of a decade earlier isn’t good, but its pedestrian nature is almost charming. It calls to mind a bygone era, when new installments of film series were … Continue reading Then Playing — Zombieland: Double Tap; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; A Separation
#39 — Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010) Fittingly, Certified Copy had its genesis in a ruse. Lore has it that Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was chatting with his friend Juliette Binoche, disguising a fictional story he’d concocted as an anecdote … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Thirty-Nine
The story at the heart of the new film Never Rarely Sometimes Always is small and enormous all at once. With a low-key dramatic restraint and workaday simplicity that evokes independent filmmaking of the nineteen-eighties and earlier, writer-director Eliza Hittman … Continue reading Now Playing — Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, 2020). A wooly mash-up of a modern Western, a riff on The Most Dangerous Game, and a roaring revenge potboiler, this Brazilian film is gonzo is all the right ways. Well, it’s probably … Continue reading Then Playing — Bacurau; Maiden; Through a Glass Darkly
Coffee for Two 