The Sheepman (George Marshall, 1958). This Western stars Glenn Ford as Jason Sweet, a deceptively genial schemer who shows up in a ranching town with a herd of sheep he plans to graze on public land, much to the consternation … Continue reading Then Playing — The Sheepman; Hangmen Also Die!; Don’t Worry Darling
California Suite (Herbert Ross, 1978). Adapted by Neil Simon from his 1976 play of the same name (a sequel to the 1968 hit Plaza Suite), this comedy sets a posh Los Angeles hotel as its home base. A series of … Continue reading Then Playing — California Suite; Good Time; Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
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
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
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
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
The Sacrament (Ti West, 2014). Following a couple elegant, artful horror features, West finally goes where all modern directors with a propensity to scare must. The Sacrament is a “found footage” that relies on the conceit of a couple Vice News reporters who tag along when a fashion photographer acquaintance goes looking for his sister, who has become a resident with a cult-like commune that has recently relocated to a remote area in South America. The plot draws heavily on the 1978 Jonestown Massacre, right down to the notorious beverage of choice when it comes time to draw the experiment … Continue reading Donahue, Hitchcock, Lang, Scorsese and Tedeschi, West
The Impossible (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012). At the very core of The Impossible is the commonplace sin of depicting a real-life tragedy in an Asian land through the experience of well-to-do, white, European travelers. The devastating tsunami that struck countries on the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 killed approximately a quarter of a million people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand, but its obviously rich vacationers played by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor whose story whose story needs to be told. This could be acceptable–albeit begrudgingly so–if the film still carried the sort of emotional weight that should … Continue reading Bayona, Lang, Moore, Sturges, Webb
#33 — Clash by Night (Fritz Lang, 1952) By the time Fritz Lang sat in the director’s chair for Clash by Night, he’d been a filmmaker for some thirty-five years. In his early sixties, he was also going through something of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Thirty-Three
Trouble with the Curve (Robert Lorenz, 2012). A longtime Clint Eastwood collaborator–multiple credits as a producer and assistant director–makes his feature directorial debut, and it predictably looks like one of his pal’s stodgier efforts, right down to the venerable actor doing a variation of his Gran Torino gravel-voiced grump complaining about the kids these days. In Trouble with the Curve, Eastwood plays a old baseball scout who’s disparaged by the moneyball adherents in the deluxe offices, even though there’s some things you just can’t tell about a prospect from looking at a computer screen. The film is painfully simplistic, setting … Continue reading Duke, Hitchcock, Lang, Lorenz, Rees
Coffee for Two 