The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946). My overwhelming reaction to this drama of post-war turmoil in the lives of U.S. fighting men and their families is a dumbstruck marveling that it was released just one year after … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Best Years of Our Lives; The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography; Truth
It really seemed that Errol Morris had decided to devote his considerable talents as a documentary filmmaker to heavier, more deeply important fare, never again to revisit the sort of offbeat stories and individuals that he originally made his name … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2011 – Number Ten
The first thing I had go up on the site this week was a book review. Embarrassingly enough, this was something I could have and should have written months ago. Yes, that’s months. There was just always other material that was more pressing and it stayed simmering on the back burner until the bottom of the pan was covered with a crusty blackness as impenetrable as concrete. Needless to type, I’ve been very reluctant to sign up for further book reviews. Movie reviews, though…I’m all over that. This week I got the chance to review the new documentary from Errol … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris, 2008). The Oscar-winning documentarian turns his attention (and his Interrotron) to the appalling abuse of prisoners inflicted by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. The resulting film is exhaustive and exhausting, laying out the ugly details of the matter with an appropriate relentlessness. Morris corrals interviews with most of the principals, and their collective testimony seems painfully honest if sometimes buffered down in the name of understandable self-preservation. Morris inserts a handful of subdued and yet entirely unnecessary recreations. It’s a tactic that he’s notably employed before, but this time out it’s just intrusive. The … Continue reading Benedek, Lang, Morris, Scorsese, Wilder
Coffee for Two 