Hagazussa (Lukas Feigelfeld, 2019). An oily stew of a movie that has some aromas familiar from Robert Eggers’s The Witch, this German horror film is set in the verdant, unforgiving mountain in the fifteenth century. An odd, withdrawn woman named Albrun (Aleksandra Cwen) … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Hagazussa; The Whip Hand; Gloria Bell
La Pointe Courte (Agnès Varda, 1955). Three years before Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge, the film usually cited as the beginning of the French New Wave, Agnès Varda delivered this film that certainly flaunts a lot of the hallmarks of … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — La Pointe Courte; Boy Erased; Stan & Ollie
Man Hunt (Fritz Lang, 1941). Man Hunt was released six months before the U.S. officially entered World War II, making its animating incident fairly remarkable. A British adventurer (Walter Pidgeon) is traveling across the German countryside with his firearms and … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Man Hunt; All I Desire; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Panic in Year Zero (Ray Milland, 1962). This Cold War drama, one of a handful of films directed by Ray Milland, takes a fascinating approach to its tale of U.S. society in the immediate aftermath of nuclear weapons leveling a … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Panic in Year Zero; Searching; Stronger
Leaving Neverland (Dan Reed, 2019). Working with a landslide of troubling evidence and an abundance of cautious patience, British documentarian lays out a compelling, convincing case that Michael Jackson regularly perpetrated sexual abuse on boys that came into his orbit … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Leaving Neverland; Blaze; Denial
Bad Company (Robert Benton, 1972). A relatively obscure entry in the legion of films from the late-nineteen-sixties and early-nineteen-seventies that sought to strip away the romanticizing so entrenched in the Western genre. A young man named Drew (Barry Brown) flees … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Bad Company; Abacus: Small Enough to Jail; Son of Saul
The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968). Funded by French broadcasters, The Immortal Story was one of the featured directed by Orson Welles after he’d been effectively exiled from Hollywood. Under thick makeup better suited for the stage, Welles also plays … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Immortal Story; Operation Finale; The Blue Gardenia
The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944). Based on a Dorothy Macardle novel, director Lewis Allen’s feature directorial debut is widely cited as the first movie to depict ghosts as spectral entities that might actually exist in the world, moving amidst living … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Uninvited; The Last Black Man in San Francisco; Tickled
M (Joseph Losey, 1951). Twenty years after the Fritz Lang film of the same name became a breakthrough for actor Peter Lorre, Hollywood took its crack at the very sordid tale of a child murdered hunted by both the police … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — M; Halloween; Jane Fonda in Five Acts
Keeper of the Flame (George Cukor, 1943). Only the second film to boast the famed pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Keeper of the Flame is a stern, stout-hearted drama that too often has the life knocked out of … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Keeper of the Flame; A Star is Born; The Front Runner
Coffee for Two 