Tag: 2014 movies

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By and by, Lord, by and by

Dan Seeger

Bringing the wartime experience of Louis Zamperini to the screen has been on the Universal Pictures wish list for so long that they once dangled the part to Tony Curtis. There’s nothing like a blockbuster book to suddenly propel a film project into being. Delivering the same sort of clear storytelling and reportorial depth that distinguished her earlier Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand tracked through Zamperini’s youth, athletic feats, military achievements, astounding endurance both lost in sea and as a prisoner of war in Japanese internment camps, and finally struggles with pronounced post-traumatic stress disorder after returning home. There is a staggering amount of … Continue reading By and by, Lord, by and by

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Chaplin, Chazelle, Kosinski, Lubitsch, Pressburger and Powell

Dan Seeger

The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940). The audaciousness of Chaplin making a comedy that mocks Adolf Hitler — predicated at least somewhat on the two men’s shared taste in mustache grooming choices — is undercut, though only slightly, by the fact that he eventually regretted it, openly stating that he wouldn’t have created The Great Dictator had he been aware of the full extent of the Nazis’ crimes against humanity. Delivered as World War II was still in the ramping up process, the film is a brilliantly scathing satire, not just of Hitler’s brutal ambitions but of war itself and … Continue reading Chaplin, Chazelle, Kosinski, Lubitsch, Pressburger and Powell

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Cocteau, Keaton and Crisp, Kent, Reed, Welles

Dan Seeger

Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946). Cocteau’s take on the famed French fairy tale is elegant and unsettling, standing as a cunning exploration of the ways in which imagery and mood can reshape a familiar story. Beginning with opening credits written on a chalkboard (and then promptly erased) and an explanatory that calls for the film to be viewed with the appropriate childlike wonder, Cocteau also establishes a terrific playful quality. The resulting mix of the sublime and the goofy gives Beauty and the Beast (or, if you prefer, La Belle et la Bête) an absolute surplus of charm. … Continue reading Cocteau, Keaton and Crisp, Kent, Reed, Welles

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Arms getting heavy, exhaustion’s setting in, waves getting bigger, life’s getting thin

Dan Seeger

The gimmick built into the construction of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) has every likelihood of sinking it. The not wholly novel story of a desperate actor (Michael Keaton) mounting a troubled stage production in hopes of reviving … Continue reading Arms getting heavy, exhaustion’s setting in, waves getting bigger, life’s getting thin

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Abrahamson, Ford, Lang, Moodysson, Saulnier

Dan Seeger

While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956). This noirish drama from director Fritz Lang takes aim at the seediness of the newspapers and the cutthroat competitiveness of those in the media, tiltimng at both with equal vigor. When the newspaper owner’s son (Vincent Price) takes control upon his father’s death, he uses the recent emergence of a serial murdered dubbed “the lipstick killer” to pitch his various reporters and editors against each other in an effort to preserve their jobs or even claim one of the plum new positions available. Lang’s curiosity about the darker instincts that drive people gives … Continue reading Abrahamson, Ford, Lang, Moodysson, Saulnier