Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti, 2018). In adapting Becky Albertalli’s young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda to the screen, director Greg Berlanti and his collaborators honor the story of a gay teenager coming into his own by structuring … Continue reading Then Playing — Love, Simon; Ad Astra; The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Crawl (Alexandre Aja, 2019). To his credit, director Alexandre Aja clearly understands the lean and lowdown appeal of the premise to Crawl. With little fuss and effecticely shorthand character-building, Aja races headlong into the telling the story of a flooding … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Crawl; Her Smell; The Commuter
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019). Drawing heavily from her own experiences, Joanna Hogg crafts a film that captures the slippery ways problematic relationships become prisons of the participants’ own making. A student filmmaker named Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) falls into … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Souvenir; Atlantics; Long Shot
The Fugitive (John Ford, 1947). This drama resulted from an innovation production mounted in Mexico. In collaboration with the country’s largest production facility and using a crew mostly made up of local residents, director John Ford relates the story of … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Fugitive; Little; The Odd Couple
Early Summer (Yasujirō Ozu, 1951). The middle entry in the set known as Yasujirō Ozu’s “Noriko trilogy,” Early Summer settles in with a Japanese family and the acquaintances that move in and out of their sphere. The film is about … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Early Summer; Ex-Lady; So Big
Greta (Neil Jordan, 2019). Neil Jordan’s first feature film in six years is a trashy, inane thriller that’s miles removed from his best work. Except for the requisite appearance by Stephen Rea, it doesn’t even bear much resemblance to the … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Greta; A Warm December; Veronika Voss
Aquaman (James Wan, 2018). The relatively cinematic merits, or lack thereof, of Marvel Studios’ blockbuster epics has been a mostly mortifying public debate in recent weeks, evidently requiring every director of note to weigh in. While the fact that Martin … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Aquaman; Dolemite Is My Name; Green Room
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
Coffee for Two 