Reviews of films directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Nicole Holofcener, and David Bruckner Continue reading Then Playing — Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife; The Land of Steady Habits; The Night House
Reviews of movies directed by Sidney Lumet, John M. Chu, and Ernst Lubitsch Continue reading Then Playing — The Anderson Tapes; Wicked; Monte Carlo
#47 — The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1948) Even though he was consistently billed as James Stewart, we call him Jimmy. He is one of the classic movie actors who represents a nostalgic view of America as a land of benevolent geniality. In the collective imagination he is stalwart and kind, always prone to doing the right thing, even when terrible beset by circumstance. It’s part of the reason his overtly twisted turn in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is heaped with praise; critics are eager to reward Stewart for playing against type. While Stewart’s placement on a pinnacle of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Seven
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
One Hour with You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932). It’s a basic necessity to mention “The Lubitsch Touch” when evaluating one of the films from the great comic director, even if it’s simply to point out the absence of his trademark deftness in the work in question. One Hour with You is considered a fairly early effort–nearly a decade before revered classics like Ninotchka and The Shop Around the Corner, but, in the way of the era, the director already had dozens of films under his belt by this point. The film is a pretty odd duck, a soft-stepping musical about flirtations … Continue reading Dugan, Lubitsch, Mangold, Reitman, Taccone
Coffee for Two 